


Stages

by SableUnstable



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hermione is born and grows up in the Marauder Era, Present Tense, Remione Endgame, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-30 07:17:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5155088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SableUnstable/pseuds/SableUnstable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because every relationship is essentially just a stage, whether it's a friendship, a familial, or a romantic relationship. Theirs encompasses all three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Like a Friend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ShayaLonnie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShayaLonnie/gifts).



> Gift fic, cross-posted from my FF.net account of the same name. I do not own Harry Potter. Enjoy!

Remus Lupin loves Hermione Granger.

She makes a lasting impression from the moment he first meets her, at eleven years old. A muggle-born witch with long, bushy brown hair and front teeth too big for her small, delicate face, he encounters her on the Hogwarts Express during his quest to find an empty compartment where he can hide away from the noise, and the people, and the  _excitement._  Because Remus isn't excited to be going to Hogwarts. He's terrified. Terrified people can tell what he is just by looking at him; terrified Dumbledore's security measures won't to be enough and he'll hurt someone. Terrified he'll kill someone, or worse;  _infect_  them. So he's looking for a quiet corner to curl up in and calm down, to get lost in his head and ignore the outside world, the looks and the unfamiliar friendly smiles. Ignore the normalness he's just not used to.

And then he meets her.

It's an accident, really. He's doesn't mean for it to happen. There's a crush of students in the corridor he's trying to make his way through, more so than when he first got on the train, due to a quickly turning physical fight between three newly first-year boys holding up the works and blocking the way, and Remus's panic is escalating. He needs to get in a compartment. He  _needs_  to. He doesn't want to be there, he wants to be at home with his parents and the magically locked and warded basement, and he's having trouble breathing because there are bodies  _everywhere._  The full moon is still three weeks away but that doesn't matter, the agitation and anxiety is bringing the wolf to the surface, and when a body brushes up against his, pushing against him, a growl rumbles in his chest and out of his mouth and his hands latch onto the threat and grip  _hard._

The threat squeaks. It's this unexpected sound that brings Remus to his senses, and he blinks rapidly and finds himself looking into curious and nervous that borders on frightened brown eyes. Horror roars through him and he lets his prey go so hurriedly, she stumbles back into the wall.

He's  _scared_ her. He shouldn't be there, he's a  _monster_. His chest tightens, and there's a buzzing in his ears, and he feels dizzy, and he tries to babble out an apology but there's an obstruction in his throat that he can't force words around. And then a hand wraps around his arm and pulls him to the side, and a door slides open and closes with an unknown word and a flash of light, and all the noise and the heat and the people disappear. He's sitting with the gentle guidance of the hand on his arm, and Remus instinctively curls up in the seat and closes his eyes, dragging in long draws of air through his nose, filling his lungs and allowing the silence to ground him and slow his racing heart. It takes a while, a long while, but eventually he cracks his eyes open to regard the girl he's attacked and frightened sitting on the opposite bench with her nose buried in a book.

 _To Kill a Mockingbird._ He'd enjoyed that one.

"I'm sorry," he croaks, and the girl looks up and cocks her head, brown eyes now only curious. She's studying him like a bug under a microscope. Even curled up tightly, Remus still fidgets under her stare.

"Do you usually have panic attacks?" she asks, voice not exactly friendly, and Remus gets the impression that she's only asking because she likes to know. She's nosy. He frowns, but the girl speaks again because he has a chance to reply. "Never mind, it doesn't matter. If you're better now, you should put your robes on. We're nearly there."

With that, she turns back to her book, dismissing him. Remus stares with his mouth open, shocked at how blasé she's acting, as if being attacked by a boy who's growling at her is a common, everyday thing. She doesn't shriek and scream and draw attention to him. Instead, she pulls him into an empty compartment and… did she magically  _lock_ the door?

He turns and looks, and yes, he can smell the familiar magic, even if it isn't as strong as what he's used to. His head swivels back around and he gapes, stunned. She's given him someplace to pull himself together without the chance of anyone walking in to see him falling apart. All after he's attacked her.

There's suddenly an unusual warmth in his chest, and at that moment, he's never been more grateful for someone in his life.

"Th-thank you," he whispers, and the girls looks up again and sends him a small smile.

"Don't worry about it, this place is overwhelming. You going to put your robes on?"

Remus nods and does just that, and though they don't speak for the rest of the ride, the young werewolf watches the witch from the corner of his eye, reluctantly curious himself. A question circles in his head, and since he has no experience with the subject, he doesn't know the answer, or even how to find it out.

Has he just made a friend?

~0~

 _Gryffindor_. He's in Gryffindor. Remus is expecting Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw at best, but not Gryffindor. Never Gryffindor. He's bewildered and is sure the hat has made a mistake. He can't possibly be a  _Gryffindor_. His maybe friend, " _Hermione Granger,"_ Professor McGonagall calls out during the Sorting, is in Gryffindor as well, as are two of the boys who'd been fighting on the train. They're his dorm-mates, those two boys, and Remus doesn't know what to make of James Potter and Sirius Black.

They're always  _there._  They're loud and boisterous and messy _,_ and  _always asking questions._  His other dorm-mate, Peter Pettigrew, keeps to the shadows and follows the other two boys' leads, and Remus doesn't mind him. They're similar in some respects. But James and Sirius are demanding and overly friendly and they get on his nerves, especially as the month progresses. He often retreats to the library and holes himself up in the back corner, just to escape James and Sirius, and all the other students with their continuous voices and their choking scents. It's too much, and Remus is hiding there one evening, two weeks before the full moon, when he next interacts with his maybe friend again.

She smells like marigolds. Pungent, musky and sharp, and the scent brings his head up from his transfiguration essay to find her standing at the other end of the table.

"Can I sit here?" she asks with a frown, sitting down without waiting for an affirmative. "Everywhere else is full of people  _not_  studying. This is a  _library_ , not a place to gossip!"

She sounds huffy and exasperated, and Remus looks back down at his essay as she spreads her books out, not knowing what to say. They work silently for fifteen or so minutes and then a redheaded girl named Lily Evans who smells like ginger and raspberries joins them, and the two girls begin discussing their Potions homework. After an initial smile and a hello, Lily doesn't try to draw Remus into the conversation, and it's strangely comforting, to sit there and work while they speak of potion ingredients, not expecting anything from him. The smell of books and parchment, the silent acceptance of the library, the unassuming and steady whispers of the two girls, it relaxes him, and Remus all of a sudden doesn't miss home  _quite_  as much. He smiles down at his books and picks up his quill, idly wondering if they'd let him join the conversation.

Eventually, they do. Or maybe Remus just feels comfortable enough to add a comment himself. They don't act like he's intruding when he suggests which book to look in for History of Magic, and somehow it becomes a regular thing, to meet the two girls at the table in the back corner of the library after dinner. Remus is relatively happy, and even finds himself laughing quietly a time or two.

And then the first full moon just sneaks up on him.

It's horrendous. Horrible and painful and  _lonely,_  so much lonelier than usual, and Remus can't make it to the library for a couple of evenings after because he hurts too much. So he's  _utterly_   _flabbergasted_  when Lily and Hermione come to him instead.

"Oi, Lupin, Granger and Evans are downstairs asking for you," Peter says, and Remus's head swings up in surprise, eyes wide. James and Sirius are sitting on Sirius's bed snickering over something, and they go silent at the announcement, looking over at Remus curiously. James's eyes are narrowed.

"You're friends with Evans?" he scowls, and Remus shakes his head and gets off his bed, tongue-tied.  _Is_  he friends with Lily? And Hermione? It still isn't a question he knows how to answer.

"We study together," he says quietly, but it has to be more than that, doesn't it, if they've come to seek him out? Sirius snorts and elbows James, who is still scowling at Remus. The sandy-haired wizard swallows and turns away from the dark look, heading for the door.

He doesn't know if his bespectacled dorm-mate's glare is serious or not.

"Remus!" Lily calls when she sees him on the stairs, worry in her bright green eyes. "What happened? Where have you been?"

"Are you all right?" Hermione asks, head cocked in a way that's becoming increasingly familiar, and there's something under the question and in her eyes that reminds Remus that she'd seen him on the train, curled up in a ball during a panic attack. He swallows again.

Hermione Granger is a determined individual. He doesn't know her well, but he's figured out that much. She's smart, and she can research with the best of them. If she gets it in her head to find out what he is…

His hands clench at his sides. He needs to be more careful.

"I'm fine," he says calmly, looking from one girl to the other, "I just haven't been feeling well. It isn't anything to worry about."

Lily's shoulders fall in relief and Hermione's eyes sharpen. He can see that curiosity, that  _nosiness_ , swimming in their depths. But all she does is smile.

"All right," she says, nodding, her hair falling over her eyes. She pushes it back with an annoyed grimace, mock glaring at Lily when the redhead laughs at her. "Have you started your Charms assignment yet? I don't think I've added enough detail. It's only ten inches long."

"Which is three inches longer than required," Lily grins, and Hermione rolls her eyes at her dorm-mate, and then they turn and head for the portrait hole, hands flying as they talk and laugh. Remus shifts on the spot, unsure whether to follow.

"Remus, are you coming?"

Lily says it, and Hermione's standing there with her arms crossed and one eyebrow raised, like he's being an silly prat for even thinking about not joining them. An exhale that almost hurts rushes from Remus's lungs, because he's sure, he's  _sure_ , that this means they're friends. His stomach twists and he nods jerkily, hurrying to catch up with the two witches.

He has friends.

He has  _friends._

He doesn't know if this is a good thing or not.

~0~

It's Hermione who changes his relationships with his dorm-mates for the better. Lily doesn't want anything to do with James, Sirius and Peter, mainly because James won't stop harassing her, which ends up colouring Remus's interactions with the three boys. He knows they think him weird and unfriendly, and he'll never admit how disappointed he is when they give up and stop badgering him a couple of months into the school year, but that's all right, because he doesn't like the way they treat Lily.

Maybe he's being overly defensive. Lily's one of his friends, one of his  _first_  friends, and he doesn't like seeing her upset. Hermione says she more angry and frustrated than upset when he mentions it to her, but isn't that the same thing?

Hermione's smile is secretive when she hears him grumbling about it, and no matter what he says, he can't get her to tell him what she's smiling about.

"Talk to them if you don't like it so much," she suggests one day after Christmas break. Remus looks at her like she's barmy, but after James charms his hair red and struts around the common room proclaiming himself Lily Evans, Queen of the stick-up-the-arses, and Sirius falls out of his chair, he's laughing so much, he realizes he doesn't have a choice. So he gathers his supposed Gryffindor courage and speaks up that very night.

"Y-you need to leave L-Lily alone."

The chatter between the three boys stops and Remus finds himself centre of attention.

"What's that?" James asks, voice loud in the silence. Remus presses his lips together.

"You need to leave Lily alone," he repeats, and James gets to his feet. Sirius's grey eyes switch eagerly between James and Remus and back again, and Peter looks nervous.

Remus knows the feeling.

"What makes you think you can tell me what to do?" the wild-haired boy demands, eyes hard behind his glasses. Remus's stomach jumps, but he somehow holds his ground.

"I don't know why you don't like her so much," he begins and then breaks off when Sirius starts to laugh, and James flushes a deep red and turns to punch his friend hard in the side. Sirius's laughter turns into gasping hiccups and he topples back onto the bed. James's face is still red. Remus can't tell if he's fuming or embarrassed.

He thinks that he might be missing something here.

"I'll treat Evans any way I want to," James states mulishly, bottom lip poking out. "You can't stop me just because you're bloody  _close_  with her."

Sirius somehow gets his breath back and starts laughing harder, and there's something in James's eyes as he glowers at both Sirius and Remus, and Peter just looks confused. And just like that, the light bulb comes on and Remus gets it. The 'O' his mouth forms is almost comical.

James doesn't dislike Lily. James really likes her.

James Potter fancies Lily Evans.

Remus blinks a couple of times, a bit bemused, because he honestly can't see the appeal. Lily's pretty and a nice girl; a good friend, but he doesn't like her  _that way._ He can't imagine liking anyone  _that way._  His nose crinkles up at the thought. And even if he does think of Lily, or Hermione,  _that way_ , he can't be with her anyway.

Not with what he is.

He shakes off the thought and turns back to his dorm-mates, unable to help the pitying look he throws James. He doesn't think James has a chance. At all. Lily hates him, but maybe if he starts treating the girl better, that  _might_  change.

James's black look fades and he looks sceptical when he tells him so. His eyes narrow in suspicion.

"I thought you wanted me to leave her alone?" he questions, and Remus shakes his head.

"I want you to stop taunting and mocking her," he says, licking his lips nervously, "it's not nice and it embarrasses her. She's my friend. Maybe you could try being her friend too?"

His Gryffindor courage abruptly drains with that suggestion, and Remus scrambles onto his bed and jerks the curtains closed. There's silence and then James mutters something that Remus pretends he doesn't hear, but leads him to believe the conversation was all for naught, and his heart sinks.

He's proved wrong the next evening when Lily sits down at their table in the library with a most peculiar look on her face.

"What's wrong?" Hermione asks, her head cocking as it does. Lily frowns.

"Potter was… Potter said something more or less  _nice_  to me earlier," she explains, sounding baffled, before shaking her head and turning to her homework. Hermione snorts softly and turns to smirk at Remus, a brow raised.

Remus grins quietly back.

It's the beginning of a courtship that spans years, an overenthusiastic jester spouting flowery, ridiculous nonsense to his unwilling and exasperated, and a lot of the time furious, ladylove. And it begins Remus's friendship with his dorm-mates as well, because after having a tiny bit of non-lethal success the first time around, James decides that Remus must be some sort of magical love guru and continues to seek him out for advice. Sirius joins him, and the repetitiveness of it unfreezes the young werewolf, so that just like with Hermione and Lily, he suddenly realizes one day after the three boys wait for him before meandering down to the lake, that he's somehow saddled himself with more friends.

Again, he's baffled and more than a little uncomfortable. How the bloody hell did that happen?

~0~

His three friends turned best mates figure out what he is in second year, and when they confront him, Remus is  _petrified._ He's scared stiff that they're going to scorn and abandon him, and tell the rest of the student body who'll come after him with pitchforks, and Dumbledore will expel him, and he'll be alone again. He can't stand to be alone again. Not after knowing people, and being involved, and  _living._

Hogwarts has become his home, and now he has to leave.

He's hyperventilating at the top of the Astronomy tower when Hermione finds him. Curled up at the edge, the wind ruffling his hair, he starts violently when she puts her hand on his arm. His head snaps around and he looks at her, fear and panic and misery riding him, and when an utterly humiliating whimper escapes through lips that tremble, Hermione wraps her arms around him without saying a word.

He's gotten used to the scent of marigold. It surrounds him and his cheeks are wet.

"They don't care," she whispers, hand gently rubbing his back. "It's a part of you, Remus, not who you are. They don't care about a part of you, they care about you. They're your friends, and they'd never abandon you over some trivial little thing like being a werewolf. It's not something you chose to happen to you, so why should you be punished for it?"

Her hand is still moving along his spine, and as her words filter through his raging emotions, it gradually registers to Remus that she  _knows._  He jerks away and stares, and Hermione looks back at him calmly, and the thought of her knowing grows and expands into the knowledge of her not  _just_ knowing.

_Mother of God, is anything sacred?_

"How long?" he forces out. Hermione's expression doesn't change.

"Since the end of first year," she says, and Remus's heart is slamming  _so_  hard. What little air he's managing to drag in vanishes, and alarm replaces the calm in Hermione's eyes. Her hands grip the sides of his face.

"Remus, calm down," she orders, staring into his eyes with a frown on her face. "We do not  _care._  Not one little bit. You're still you, still that sweet, kind, intelligent boy with a surprisingly dry wit and really bad taste in male friends. You're always going to be you, and we'll always like who you are. Changing into a wolf one night a month isn't going to make us hate you."

 _You're not grasping the severity of the situation!_ Remus's brain shouts, but when he opens his mouth to say it, Hermione's lips turn thin and white and she shushes him.

She  _shushes_  him. The absurdity of it startles Remus out of his panic, and Hermione nods decisively.

"That's better. We're your friends, Remus. Try and trust us a little more, yeah?"

She wraps her arm around his shoulder and the conversation's suddenly over, whether Remus likes it or not. The young werewolf lets out a weak huff of laughter at how  _Hermione_  that is, and they sit there for a long time, not speaking, Remus swallowing heavily and sucking in air through his nose.

It's his friend's shiver that reminds him exactly where they are.

"We should go," he mutters, the setting sun making the mild winter breeze turn cool and brisk. Hermione murmurs in agreement. They get to their feet and it's natural for the witch to take his hand and lead him out of the tower and down the stairs. They use one of the hidden passages he and his dorm-mates have found and make it back to the dorms just before curfew.

The common room is half-full, but all Remus sees is the three boys sitting in the chairs by the fire. James, Peter and Sirius look up. Remus stops breathing and everything pauses.

"All right, Moony?"

The werewolf's jaw drops and his eyes go wide, and something between a giggle and a snort escapes Hermione. Sirius shares an identical smirk with James at his reaction, and all the tension abruptly deflates, Remus sagging with it as his dorm-mates get up and lead him back over to the fire, asking if he's okay and laughing over his new nickname.

They're normal. They're acting normal. His throat is tight and his eyes are prickling again, and Remus sits and takes it in, feeling punch-drunk. His eyes shift over and Hermione's standing there wearing a smirk of her own, that one eyebrow crooked.

_I told you so, didn't I?_

She's gloating in his head, and Remus sighs and closes his eyes, a small smiling tugging at his lips.

He has friends. He has  _friends._  He can hear Sirius mocking James, and when Peter nudges him to get his attention and he opens his eyes to see the boy offering him a chocolate frog with a casual grin, he's finally able to admit that maybe, just maybe, that might be a good thing.


	2. Like a Sister

Remus Lupin loves Hermione Granger.

He's fifteen when it's brought home to him that despite being one of his closest friend, she  _is_  a teenage girl.

It's Sirius who points it out. Not literally, though that's something his best mate would find no shame in doing. Instead, he does it with a tilt of his head and a flirtatious look in his eyes, a slow, deliberate scan and a teasing, sensuous grin. And Hermione does it as well, with wide eyes and losing her train of thought, an appreciative gaze that lingers where it never has before, and flushed cheeks.

They bewilder him, those looks. Hermione's always been there,  _right_   _there_ , with a bag full of books and a smirking smile, a crook of her head and a raised eyebrow. He knows she's a girl, but she's never acted like one. Not really. The year before saw her complaining to Remus about a fifth year Ravenclaw boy who'd taken to following her around. She'd found his constant talking annoying and his attempts at flirting ' _just plain weird,'_  for which Remus was glad because it meant he didn't have to go look the lad up. She's seemingly not interested in male/female games, even going so far as to mime gagging when Lily gushes about the Hufflepuff sixth-year she has a crush on.

She  _looks_  like a girl. He's noticed that. She's grown into her teeth and her face is still delicate, her slight body slender and her wild hair making up for her short stature, in her words. But it's natural to notice those things, he reasons, he's a bloke after all, so he's never dwelled on it. The way she looks doesn't matter, because she's his first friend, his  _best_  friend in a way that's different from James and Sirius and Pete, and he'd do anything for her.

So, despite the frequency, he doesn't really worry about those looks between her and his dorm-mate. He figures Hermione knows Sirius is a flirt, and after all, she's  _far_ too smart to fall for the practised lines he hands out.

Or so he thinks.

That changes one evening when he climbs through the portrait hole after spending two days in the Hospital Wing due to a stray hex in Defense, to see a packed common room and Sirius and Hermione hidden in the back corner, him staring into her eyes, lifting her chin with a single finger and slowly leaning in. And she's not pulling away. Her hand's resting on his cheek, and as the sandy-haired wizard watches, she moves forward herself and their lips meet.

Remus is stunned.

He's  _stunned._

"You didn't see this coming?"

The voice belongs to Lily, and he drags his gaze around to see her leaning a shoulder against the wall beside the portrait hole, one leg folded over the other and an expression he can't make sense of on her face. He swallows and slowly shakes his head. He can't find words.

"It's been building for weeks now," Lily says, watching him. "How could you not have noticed? You didn't think Sirius suddenly studying a lot more was just a need to improve his grades, did you?"

"It's OWLs," Remus manages to mutter, and Lily's eyes soften. She pulls away from the wall and walks over, stopping to silently rub Remus's shoulder. Her eyes flick over that shoulder and Remus can't stop himself following her gaze.

They're no longer kissing. But they're still sitting close, Sirius now talking to James, and Hermione with a book open in her lap. Sirius's grin should really be distorting his words, and Hermione's smile is soft, her eyes unfocused on the page. Their fingers are laced together on the small bit of seat between them.

Remus can hear his heart in his ears and his words are gone again.

"I don't know how long it'll last, and I doubt they do either. Just… try to get used to it, all right? They look happy. Isn't that the most important thing?"

Remus doesn't like change. He's most comfortable when things are running on an even kilter, sailing smoothly, with no hint of a dizzyingly abrupt right turn in sight. This turn with Sirius and Hermione is so sharp, it almost cuts. It completely throws him. So he does what he usually does when he needs to get his head around something.

He retreats.

Walking away from Lily without saying a word, he crosses the common room and heads up the stairs to his dorm, shutting himself away behind charmed curtains until the next morning.

He doesn't sleep at all that night.

~0~

"You treat her right."

The words blurt out, as they always do when he's nervous, and the dorm goes silent. Sirius's naked back stiffens.

"Er… we'll just… be downstairs."

James does have some tact when he needs it. The door closes and Remus is alone with Sirius, the dark-haired wizard turning to face the werewolf with what should be a cocky expression but doesn't quite reach it. The two boys eye each other.

"'Course I will," Sirius eventually says, and Remus frowns and shakes his head.

"No. You  _treat her right._  She deserves more than you playing around with her. She's not your usual type."

Sirius looks offended and opens his mouth to reply, then pauses. After a moment, his shoulders sink.

"No," he says quietly, "she's not." His expression turns imploring and he takes a step forward. "But that's what I like about her, Moony. She's smart, and funny, and sarcastic, and opinionated, and she wants to spend time with me, and she doesn't take any shit, and she isn't bubble-headed and constantly squealing over me like a lot of the birds here, and, and… I- I like her. I  _like_  her. I'll treat her right. I will."

Remus's stomach is clenching, and he doesn't like it,  _Merlin_ , he doesn't like it, but he can't protest after that. He can't. Sirius is one of his best mates and Hermione is his… is his…

 _Sister_ , his brain supplies suddenly, and it doesn't feel quite right. Doesn't quite fit. But it's the closest he can come up with, so he goes with it. He shifts on the spot and stares intently at Sirius, who's looking unusually unsure. Remus's mouth flattens. Hermione's the closest thing to a sister he's ever had, and he'll  _end_ Sirius if he hurts her.

But shouldn't he want the best for her? And if the best is one of his best mates, then who's he to say that this can't happen?

"I don't want to know about it," he says gruffly, and Sirius's nod is so rapid, his hair tangles around his forehead. Remus stands there wordless for another minute, and then turns and leaves the room, passing James, Peter and Hermione in the common room.

"Remus…?" Hermione calls after him, her brows drawn down, but he doesn't stop. And when she and Lily join him in the library later, he's silent and awkward and a first-year all over again.

~0~

For five months, Sirius keeps his word. Remus is sure he's talking to James about it, but they somehow manage to keep it private. Remus sees the couple of course; they hold hands, and Hermione sits in his lap, and they snog  _all the bloody time_ , but in the boys' dorm, Hermione and Sirius are off limits.

Pete's birthday and a whole lot of firewhiskey change that.

The four boys are sitting in a circle in their empty transfiguration classroom ("cheers, Minnie!" Sirius salutes) playing exploding snap, and Remus has a nice buzz on, but he isn't drunk. It takes a  _lot_  to get him drunk, so much that they haven't actually managed to do it yet. The other three are rip-roaring however, and James is bemoaning the fact that after four and a half years of wooing, Lily still isn't his.

"I give 'nd I give 'nd she gives nothin' back," he slurs as a card blows up in Peter's face, singeing the wispy moustache he's trying to grow. He frantically pats at his face, and Sirius's giggles are high-pitched and seemingly unending.

Since it isn't the first time parts of their bodies have caught fire, Remus figures he finds something else hysterically funny.

"What are you laughing at?" he asks with a grin, sipping the dark gold liquid in his glass. Sirius shakes his head like a dog and tips backwards, landing on his back on the floor with his hands over his mouth.

"He… he… he can't ge' any!" he snickers helplessly. "Its why 'e wanks all the time!"

"Oi! You wank too!"

"Nope, nope," Sirius sings, throwing his arms wide and ending up eagle spread, "I've 'Erminee to do that for me!" He giggles, sighs, and closes his eyes, folding his hands over his stomach. "Hmm. Love the witch. Eager, tha' one. And the sounds she makes when she comes. Swee' Merlin, I could blow jus' from that."

The snarl builds deep in his sternum, rumbling through his chest and shaking his ribs, and it  _rips_  through the air when it escapes him, continuous and threatening and  _loud._ Sirius's eyes fly open, his upper body springs up, and he gapes, the sound shocking him sober if only briefly. The firewhiskey bottle slips from James's frozen hand and spills all over the floor.

"Moony?" Peter whispers, bleary eyes wide. Remus's knuckles are white and he feels like there's invisible chains holding his back, his body straining forward but somehow still staying in position on the other side of their circle. His teeth are bared, and his mates are staring into soft green eyes haunted with amber.

"Rem, I-"

But Sirius doesn't finish because Remus is on his feet and out the door.

~0~

They don't talk about it. It's weird, because they talk about everything, but they don't talk about this. Or Sirius and Remus don't – Peter and James and Sirius, he's sure, talk about it all the time, going by the way conversations stop so abruptly when he enters the dorm. Remus himself is happy not speaking of it. He's embarrassed by his over-the-top reaction, and he doesn't actually want to  _think_  about what led to that reaction.

He is violently opposed to thinking about what led to that reaction.

It becomes another forbidden topic and the four boys just pretend it didn't happen, which Remus approves of wholeheartedly. He puts it out of his mind, and that's where it stays until a month later when he returns to the school early during a Hogsmeade day.

"You're not going to Hogsmeade?" Lily asks the night before, and Hermione shakes her head, rolling her eyes when Sirius pouts at her.

"No. We're going to spend the day studying," she says. Sirius sighs loudly.

"But Honeydukes, love!" he whines, puppy-dog eyes pitiful. "And butterbeer and Zonko's!  _Zonko's_! And you want to visit that bookstore, right? We can study anytime!"

"Did you or did you not  _almost fail_  that test at the beginning of the week, Sirius Black?" Hermione scolds pointedly, poking her boyfriend in the chest, brow arched. Remus grins at the familiarity of the tone. "We are staying here and we are studying, and you are going to stop complaining about it! Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal," Sirius sulks, while James coughs " _yes mum,_ " behind his hand and Peter sniggers. Hermione smirks and pats his shoulder, and the conversation moves on to where Remus, Peter and James are going first, Lily sniffing and saying that she, Marlene McKinnon and Alice MacMillan will be going in the opposite direction. James gets a mischievous look on his face and starts whispering with Pete, and Remus eyes them suspiciously, already thinking of ways to divert whatever they're planning.

In the end, he doesn't get the chance to divert anything. Pre-moon symptoms hit Remus without warning the next day, and by early afternoon he's dragging, mentally and physically. His mates are understanding when he begs off any further adventures, and he makes his way back to the castle with thoughts of a mug of the house-elves' premium hot chocolate and the rest of the afternoon in bed.

His head is so foggy that he doesn't notice the dorm is already occupied until he walks in on them.

Long, sleek lines. The bed-curtains are wide open, the covers pooled at the base of the bed, and his hands are clamped on her rolling hips, her torso a smooth, endless, pale plane, her breasts swaying. She's moaning, her hands sliding over her skin and into that untameable hair as he grunts and thrusts up into her, and the air is thick and aching with the scent of marigold, something slick, natural,  _primal_  deepening the scent as it twines around and through spice and leather and coal dust, as if never to be separated.

Remus stares.

The disgust is unexpected, the awe even more so. Their hips pick up speed, and they don't even notice him, and Remus  _forces_  his legs to move, retreating back through the door, heart slamming and mind a mess.

He's as hard as stone.

The young werewolf finds out exactly how much firewhiskey it takes to get him drunk that afternoon. He takes the tunnel to Honeydukes' cellar and strides silently through the streets, ending up at a nondescript little pub called The Hog's Head. The bartender doesn't care that he's clearly underage, just that his galleons are good, and when Remus stumbles his way back to the school much later that evening, he's well and truly  _pissed._

"Moony! Where the  _fuck_  have you been?"

The voice is disembodied, and Remus swings around wildly as he climbs from the Honeydukes tunnel, searching for the source. "Whos therr'?"

The air shimmers, and James and Lily appear, pulling the cloak off them. Remus gapes at them and then starts giggling nonstop, the world spinning.

"James! Jamie, Jamie, yous got her! Yous got your – hic! – got your flower!"

"Good Lord, Remus, are you  _drunk_?" Lily gasps, her eyes firing up and her hands finding her hips. "You disappear for hours and worry us sick, and you're out getting drunk with  _no_  consideration-"

"Evans, shut it!" James snaps, surprising Lily so much that her mouth clamps shut. The bespectacled boy steps forward and places both hands on Remus's shoulders, peering into his eyes. "All right, Rem?" he asks quietly.

"Bril'nt," Remus answers, smiling widely, weaving on the spot. "Fi'wisky's goooood, Jamie! Like it a lot!"

James frowns, still searching cloudy green eyes. "Come on, Moons," he eventually sighs, "let's get you to bed, yeah?" He wraps his arm around Remus shoulder and Remus mumbles something neither Lily or James can understand, and then they slowly make their way through the castle with Remus hanging off his dorm-mate and the cloak haphazardly thrown around the three of them. The common room is empty but for a few stragglers and Peter, Sirius, and Hermione when they enter.

"You found him!" Hermione exclaims, relief lighting her face as she rushes over. "Where was he? Is he okay? Remus, what happened?" She reaches for him and then stops, shocked, when Remus jerks away from her.

"No, no, no, no," he mutters, falling back against the wall and sliding down it a little. "Not you, not you, don' want you."

"What's wrong with him?" the bushy-haired witch demands shrilly, now looking a bit frightened. The expression on James's face is stark.

"He's well pissed," he replies, mouth hard. Peter's jaw drops and Sirius shakes his head, brows furrowed.

"Moony can't  _get_  drunk," he points out, eyes on his slumping mate.

"Apparently, he can. Let's get him upstairs. He's going to have one hell of a head tomorrow."

Sirius nods and he and James reach for Remus to heave him to his feet.

" _Don't fucking_   _touch_   _me_!"

The growl freezes everyone. Remus is crouched on the balls of his feet, glaring viciously at Sirius, amber once again swimming through the green of his eyes. Sirius's step back is instinctive.

"Whoa, okay, calm down, Moony," he says, hands up in front of him. He turns to James with wide eyes. "What the bloody hell's wrong with him?"

"I don't know," the messy-haired wizard answers, jaw still tense, "but whatever it is must be big, because it's caused him to deliberately go out and get mindlessly sloshed. It must've taken an ocean of alcohol to get him like this."

"Is he trying to forget something?" Peter murmurs, but no one has an answer. James sighs and rubs his temple with his thumb and pointer finger.

"Right, so we still need to get him up to the dorm. Sirius, you stay back, and maybe Hermione as well, he pulled away from you before. Pete, wanna give me a hand?"

"Sure thing," Peter agrees, and the two boys carefully approach Remus, who is slumped back against the wall again, sitting on the floor with his knees bent and his head in his hands. "Up you get, Rem, that's it. Time to sleep, mate."

"S'okay, Petey, jus' gotta – hic! – jus' gotta work on it."

"All right then, but do that tomorrow, yeah? Here's the stairs, Moons, step up now."

The three boys slowly make their way up the stairs, Sirius, Hermione and Lily following. Remus is all but silent and completely passive most of the way; only really coming to life once they get to their dorm. His nose screws up and he shrugs Peter and James off, tripping over his feet until he gets to his bed, falling down face-first.

"Don' wanna sleep," he mumbles, and then promptly closes his eyes and passes out.

~0~

For a week, Remus stays holed up in his dormitory. He doesn't tell anyone what he's seen, and doesn't explain his drinking binge, and he's utterly  _livid_ with Sirius, which he expresses through ignoring him the fucker. Sirius is clearly frustrated, but seems to care less the more Remus ignores him. He stubbornly doesn't try to draw Remus from his mood, which Remus knows exasperates James and confuses Peter.

Funnily enough, Remus is furious with Hermione as well, though he's not exactly sure why. He knows what Sirius is like and how talented he is at talking a girl into his bed. But he can't help the anger, and he can't help the almost vindictive satisfaction he feels at knowing that neither of his friends are aware of why he's pissed off at them, something he won't back down from, despite Hermione demanding that he get his head out of his arse and explain himself.

"I don't know what you're problem is, but you're being a right tosser!" she yells at him, hands on her hips and her hair flying around her head. Remus's lungs contract at the way her voice wobbles, but he doesn't acknowledge her, and Hermione throws up her hands with a cry of vexation and stalks from the room.

Looking up when the door slams, Remus tells himself is anger is justified. He has every right to be mad. They've gone behind his back… they've betrayed… they've done  _that,_ and she's like a sister to him, and he can't…

Let them suffer.

It's the night before the full moon when his dorm-mates throw a spanner in the works, and Remus is again closed behind his curtains when they're suddenly yanked open. His head snaps up and he scowls in irritation.

"Oi, I'm working here!"

"Don't care," James says, face determined. "We've something to show you. Maybe it'll stop you from being such a giant git for once. Padfoot?"

 _Padfoot?_  Remus wonders, frowning, but before he can comment, Sirius steps out from behind James wearing a nervous expression that contradicts every other expression he's worn that week. He licks his lips and takes a deep breath.

"Um, so we've planning this for a while, and we all finally managed to get it last week, and, well… er, I guess just watch."

He takes another breath and widens his stance, eyes closing as Remus frowns further, and then he's not there any longer. Remus's jaw drops.

In his place is a large black dog.

"Wha…?" he mutters, gawking at the dog, who inches forward and noses his knee before sitting back on its haunches with its tongue hanging out. Remus's shocked gaze swings to James. "Did he just…?"

James grins. "Yip! And now we have… Wormtail!"

A gurgle of laughter escapes Peter and then there's a rat where he used to be, squeaking as it races around the dog and climbs up its tail. Remus's eyes bug.

"Mother of Merlin!"

"And last but most definitely not least, in fact quite decidedly  _most_ , I give you… Prongs!"

James throws up his chin and then he's a stag.

He's a  _stag._

"Holy fuck!" Remus yelps, his pre-moon body protesting vehemently when he flings himself back further on the bed in surprise. The stag snorts in what could only be described as amusement and stamps its hoof, and the rat chitters, scrambling down the dogs back and running for the stag. The stag lowers its head to allow the rat to run up its nose.

Remus gawps at the three animals, his breath streaming from his lungs with the force of a freight train, his heart pounding. He's staggered, and dumbfounded, and disbelieving, and  _panicked_ , and he just can't process it. They have… they have…

What have they done?

"Moony?"

His head whips around and Sirius is standing by the bed, watching him anxiously.  _Sirius_ is. No more dog. Remus swallows hard and pushes the words out.

"W-what did you  _do_?"

"We can help you now, Moony," Sirius says earnestly, words leaving him in a rush. "You won't have to be by yourself tomorrow or ever again. Werewolves don't attack animals, and we can… we can give you a pack of sorts. It won't stop the pain, but maybe you won't attack and hurt yourself if you have a distraction. Hermione wanted to do it as well, but her workload's far too large to allow her to devote the necessary magical energy. She only found out we were doing it this year and it hurts her to try. She feels incredibly guilty about it." He steps forward and sits on the bed, staring intently at the werewolf who has pulled his knees up and is hugging them. "But even without her, you don't have to face this alone anymore. We are-" he turns and nods his head, mouth twitching at the stag frantically trying to shake off the rat clinging to one of his antlers, getting more agitated by the minute, "-we'll be with you now. Every step of the way. If you want us."

Remus is paralyzed, unblinking. They've done this for him. They've become… they've become unregistered animagi, because they  _have_  to be unregistered, to help him. He can't even begin to comprehend it.

 _Sirius_  has done this for him.

Anger can't stand up against that.

"Goddamn you, Black," he groans, scrubbing at his face and sighing as the dark emotions melt like they hadn't even existed. The Black heir's grin is lightning quick and overflowing with relief.

"Padfoot," he corrects, and in the blink of an eye, he's a dog again. He lets out a soft wuff and then begins to dance around the bed, galloping over to the stag and the rat, yipping excitedly. Remus laughs, the sound catching in his chest halfway, choking him.

"Padfoot," he whispers, watching the stag lower his antlers and shake his head hard, the rat squealing when he topples onto the dog's back and slides down until he digs his little claws in and catches himself. "Prongs and Wormtail. Thank you. Thank you."

The way he swipes at his eyes isn't discreet at all, but the three animagi just continue to play and pretend not to notice.


	3. Like His Sister

Remus Lupin loves Hermione Granger.

She's like his scars now. A constant, never fading part of his life, something that just is; it's as if she always there, in his head, even when she isn't. He takes her presence for granted, and he knows he probably shouldn't, but he can't imagine his life without her in it, just as he can't imagine living without Padfoot and Prongs and Wormtail. Hermione's another limb, and his fellow 'Marauders' are his spine, and Remus's life is more solid than it has been since he was bitten as a child.

Once again, it's Sirius who throws things off track.

Sixth year rolls around, bringing with it the beginning of NEWTs, quiet rumbles of war from the outside world that the students safe inside Hogwarts mostly ignore, a steady build-up of tension between Sirius and Hermione, and Melissa Murphy.

Remus doesn't see her coming. She's in the year above him, her final year, and he meets her officially when the Heads decide to encourage inter-house unity by pairing prefects from different houses and years for patrol. Melissa is Remus's partner, a rambunctious Hufflepuff with a mane of curly blonde hair, bright brown eyes and a tall, curvy body that captures his attention from the moment he sees her walking towards him just before their first set of rounds.

He flushes when he realizes he's looking and hurriedly looks down. Melissa doesn't seem to notice, thank Merlin, and so begins one of the most enjoyable patrols he remembers experiencing. Melissa talks a mile a minute, but she listens as well, and Remus is smiling when their hour ends. He already looking forward to the next time.

Being as they'd had an early patrol, his dorm-mates are still in the common room when he steps through the portrait hole, and he doesn't realize he's still smiling until Sirius mentions it.

"What are you so happy about?" he asks, and there's a tiny bit of a bite in his tone that lets Remus know he's sulking about something. Hermione's sitting in the opposite chair reading  _The Outsiders_  and not paying her boyfriend any attention, which usually doesn't bother Sirius. He just enjoys annoying her (and everyone else) by pretending it does.

Remus doesn't like thinking about of the undercurrents that are always there nowadays. He doesn't like the feeling of being stuck in the middle. He doesn't know when the undercurrents began, Sirius has been snappy and agitated and  _off_  since summer, when he turned up on James's doorstep saying he'd run away and wasn't welcome at home any longer. James had immediately pulled him inside and said that his home was with them now, but the Potters hadn't taken him seriously until Dorea owled Walburga Black, who owled back saying that it doesn't matter to her where Sirius is because she only has one son. Needless to say, James's parents backed James up rather quickly after that. Sirius won't talk to anyone about it, not even to Hermione, but he's more reckless, more wild than normal, more willing to break the rules, more vicious with pranks, and  _much_  more violent when it comes to taunting Slytherins. Hermione is very much against it, and it's led to mutiny in the ranks. Remus does his best to stay out of it completely.

Because even though he knows which side is his, which side he'd take if he ever had to choose, it still feels like a betrayal to Sirius. So he stays clear.

"No reason," Remus shrugs, taking a seat. Sirius's eyes narrow and then slowly widen in comprehension. His moody expression vanishes.

"I know that look!" he exclaims as he turns fully to face Remus and leans forward eagerly. "Who is she, Moony?"

Remus's eyes flick to Hermione and then back to Sirius, cursing the way his face flushes. "Who's who?" he asks, shifting on the spot. Sirius smirks.

"The bird that's got you grinning like a loon. Who does little Remus fancy, huh?"

"Fancy? What's this?"

Both boys' heads turn at the interruption and Remus's flush deepens. Hermione is looking at them, her book closed, and she's frowning, head tilted. Sirius's smirk grows.

"Our little Moony, love! Some girl's got him all twisted!" He swings back to Remus and his hand shoots up to pinch painfully at Remus's cheek. "Aww, look at our boy, finally becoming a man!"

"Oi, shove off!"

"Sirius, stop that!"

"Who is it, Moony?" Sirius demands, ignoring both protests. He's practically vibrating in his seat. "Did you run into a couple shagging during patrol and liked what you saw? Nah, you'd be blushing and mortified instead of blushing and happy if that'd happened. But you weren't all glowing and shit before rounds, so… aha!"

He turns with pinpoint accuracy thanks to Padfoot-enhanced senses, to spear Lily, who's just climbing through the portrait hole, with a look.

"Evans! Who's Remus's patrol partner?"

"Melissa Murphy," the witch answers as she walks over, looking wary. "Why?"

"Melissa Murphy?" Sirius whirls back around waggles his eyebrows, grinning. "That stacked Hufflepuff-"

" _Sirius_!"

"-in seventh year? Damn, Rem, you've got taste! And lighten up, Hermione, would you?"

Hermione huffs and Remus shifts, uncomfortable, exchanging a look with Lily. He's never hears them actually fight, but the constant tension is almost worse.

"So you gonna ask her out?"

"What? No." Remus frowns and looks back at Sirius, who's the very picture of a gossipmonger with his body leaning forward impatiently and his grey eyes dancing. "And who says it's even her? Who says there's even anyone in the first place? You're assuming where you shouldn't, Pads."

"Assuming, my arse," Sirius scoffs with rolling eyes, "it's obvious there's at least someone. Why aren't you going to ask her out? There's a Hogsmeade trip on Saturday. Ask her to go with you!"

Remus sighs. "Padfoot, I don't-"

"He's not going to ask  _anyone_  out, Sirius, because Remus is far too sensible to get involved with someone during the most important part of our school career."

The excitement drains from Sirius's face and he turns to Hermione, expression dark. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what I said," Hermione answers, focus back on her book. Sirius stares at her and then his face transforms into a sneer.

"Well, maybe you don't know  _him_  as well as you think you do, yeah? Ask her out, Rem, or maybe I'll just do it for you."

Hermione's head lifts as Sirius gets to his feet and heads for the dormitory stairs, her expression troubled. She sighs and Lily sits down next to her and bumps her shoulder, a pointed look on her face, but Hermione smiles sadly and shakes her head, then turns back to her book. Usually, Remus joins Lily in trying to cheer the witch up, but his mind is too preoccupied at the moment.

Sensible? Is that how she sees him? Is that how everyone sees him? The word abruptly takes on a negative connotation and Remus frowns. He's a Marauder, isn't he? He's provided most of the brains, knowhow and spells behind the Map, and he's the reason why Sirius and James don't get caught a lot of the time. But all he's seen as is  _sensible_?

The word niggles at him for some reason, and he's moody and contemplative for the rest of the week. He doesn't see Melissa again until right before breakfast three days later, when he and his dorm-mates and Hermione are on their way to the Great Hall.

"Remus!"

He turns and she's smiling widely, and Christ, Sirius is right, she  _is_ stacked, and Hermione's frowning at her, and the word  _sensible_  whispers through his head, and he's speaking before he knows he's even going to say anything.

"Do you want to go to Hogsmeade with me?"

He blurts it loudly in the middle of a crowded hallway, and the crowd goes dead quiet. Remus flushes a deep red, Sirius hoots with amusement, and Melissa blinks rapidly. She's blushing a little herself as the crowd begins to titter.

"Oh. Um…"

"Never mind, forget I said anything," Remus mutters, embarrassed beyond belief. He turns with every intention of fleeing, but looks back over when a hand on his arm stops him.

"No, wait, I'm sorry, you just surprised me. I'd… I'd like that."

The blush on her cheeks darkens and Remus's eyes go round. "You would?" he squeaks, then clears his throat and repeats the question in a much more manly voice. Melissa's lips twitch and she nods. She looks almost shy.

"Yeah. Yeah, I would."

"Woohoo! Go Moony!"

Laughter rings through the surrounding students and an arm throws itself around Remus's shoulder. Sirius hangs off him and Remus grins, not really embarrassed anymore, despite the murmuring crowd. Melissa's grin matches his, and her eyes roll as Sirius proceeds to bow down to Remus as if he's accomplished something awe-inspiring.

"I've a tutoring session that I'm going to be late for as it is, so I've got to go," she says, looking at Remus, "but I'll meet you in the Entrance Hall, yeah?"

"I'll be there," Remus answers. He feels another blush warm his cheeks when he hears how eager he sounds. Melissa's grin widens.

"So will I," she says softly, meaningfully, and Remus's cheeks  _burn._  Laughter lights her eyes and with a wink, she turns on her heels and strides away through the slowly dispensing crowd.

"Well, Moony, I wouldn't have thought the blurt and embarrass method would work, but I've got to say, you well got results." James smirks when Remus turns back to his friends. "I didn't know you had it in you. Congrats, mate."

"If you don't think it works, Potter, why are you continuously using it on me?" Lily asks, appearing out of nowhere, but she's turning away before James can get out whatever smart-arsed remark is sitting on his tongue. Her eyes fall on Remus and her lips purse for a brief moment, and then she's jogging away down the hall.

Following a rapidly disappearing head of bushy brown hair.

~0~

The date goes well. They meet at Hogwarts' large front doors and walk to Hogsmeade with everyone else, not talking much. Not to each other. The silence isn't uncomfortable, however; it's a warm day, and Remus is nervous, but hanging out with Melissa appears easy, like he doesn't even have to try. Apart from a small amount of expected rival house ribbing, his friends are welcoming, and though Remus and his date mainly listen to the general conversation, it still seems like she slips right in.

There is one dark cloud. Hermione is angry with him and he doesn't know why.

She's walking five feet away, next to Sirius, but those five feet may as well be a gulf. And what makes it worse is that she's not  _angry_  with him, per se. Not really. Not like fifth year when he was a wanker after seeing her and Sirius. It'd taken almost a week of relentless apologizing to get her to forgive him for that. No, Hermione isn't angry.

She careful.

She's polite; she's distant; she's  _wary._  It makes the gulf deeper, makes it pulse with a greater significance that Remus doesn't understand. And it makes him constantly watch her, even now, when all he should be concentrating on is the way Melissa's muggle jeans fit her like a second skin.

It confuses the fuck out of him. Remus doesn't like it. At all.

They reach Hogsmeade and Remus's eyes follow Hermione as everyone splits off and she and Sirius head towards Tomes and Scrolls, and then Melissa nudges him and he turns and smiles, and his best friend slips from his mind for the rest of the day.

It's evening when they make their way back to the castle, and Remus doesn't know where the time has gone. They spend the day walking around the village; generally staying away from the more popular haunts, and by wordless mutual agreement, they avoid Madam Puddifoot's like the plague. Melissa's very easy to talk to, something he already knows, and to laugh with. There's a lot of laughter. There's no deep, in-depth conversation, it's all light and single-layered, airy, and Remus really likes it.

Deep and meaningful often leads to having to lie. It's a relief not having to dodge, or sometimes plain make up, certain events and time periods in his life.

Melissa's friends are waiting for her just outside the entrance doors to the school, and the couple stops, and all of a sudden it's awkward. Remus doesn't know what to do now. How do you end a date? He's never been on one before so he doesn't know. Just saying goodbye and walking away seems anticlimactic, and shaking hands is far too  _friendly_ , not to mention formal-

"Remus?"

"Hmm?" Remus looks up, distracted from his fretting. Melissa is smiling at him as if amused by something.

"Will you kiss me goodnight?"

Remus's breath catches at the question and his jaw drops just a little. Kiss her? He hasn't thought of that. It's only a first date after all.

_Don't you want to kiss her?_

The voice sounds like Sirius, and makes Remus realize that yes, he  _does_  want to kiss her. He swallows hard, and his nod is jerky. He steps forward and Melissa mirrors him, and her eyes close, and her lips are right there, and he doesn't even have to bend down because she's only a tiny bit shorter than he is. He can feel her body heat.

She smells like seawater.

Remus hesitates for a brief flash of a second, his gut twisting, and then he closes the distance and his lips are on hers.

It's soft. Warm and soft, and quite nice, and Remus tentatively presses closer, moving his lips over hers, enjoying exploring the contours of her mouth. Melissa sighs and moves into him, and then her mouth opens and her tongue touches the seam of his lips. Remus sucks in a startled breath before quickly reciprocating, and what was just warmth before, abruptly rockets into heat.

His head spins. His hands snap up to cup her throat, and his tongue sweeps out and over hers, and Melissa clutches fistfuls of his sweater like she trying to tear it, and she moans.

She  _moans._

It thrills him, that sound.  _He's_  made her do that. He lifts her chin, breaking away and then going back for more, kissing her again and again, eager to produce more of those noises. Her response is enthusiastic, and they're pressed so close her breasts are squashed against his chest, and he can feel her nipples through her blouse, and heat's building steadily in his belly, and he can't breathe, but he's not sure he wants to-

"MR LUPIN!"

The loud, horrifyingly familiar voice startles the witch and wizard apart. Melissa is blinking repeatedly, looking decidedly dazed, and Remus's lungs are straining. His face is hot, and he's semi-erect, and it's  _fantastic._

A throat clears, a second significant interruption, and both Remus and Melissa look over at Professor McGonagall, who's standing with her arms crossed and her mouth pinched tight in disapproval.

"You two should be ashamed of yourselves!" she barks, and Remus is suddenly aware of the crowd they've attracted. He blushes profusely as students of all ages smirk and whisper to each other. Melissa's friends are giggling behind hands slapped over their mouths.

He's made a spectacle of himself again.

"Such public displays are entirely inappropriate!" the deputy headmistress continues. "You're both prefects; you should be setting an example for your fellow students, the younger years in particular! Ten points from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff respectively, and Miss Murphy, I'll be letting Professor Sprout know about what has happened here today!"

"Sorry, Professor," Remus mumbles, and Melissa echoes him, though he sees a tiny smile twitch at the corner of her mouth. McGonagall lets out an ill-tempered huff.

"Back to your common rooms, the both of you," she snaps, her beady eyes trained solidly on them. "And no dawdling!"

"Yes, Professor."

With an apologetic smile at Melissa, Remus about-faces and heads inside. A strange combination of pride and shame is fizzing through his chest, and he stops in his tracks when he sees Sirius, Peter and James waiting for him just inside the Entrance Hall, all grinning their heads off, and…

Hermione.

She looks like she's been hit in the face with a bludger. The blatant astonishment slides away when she meets his eyes, and the gulf is a  _physical_   _thing_ , stretching out endless between them.

Remus scowls. When she walks away from him without saying a word, he's had enough.

"Hermione!"

Her back is stiff, and she doesn't slow down, and he runs to catch up with her. He grabs her arm and ignores her protest when he pulls her to a stop and drags her into an empty classroom. The door closes and Hermione is looking mightily miffed. Whether it's because he's manhandled her, or because of something else he's clueless about, Remus doesn't know.

"Why are you angry with me?"

The words fall out and Hermione looks surprised for a moment. "I'm not."

"Yeah, you are. Sort of. Something's happened. Something's wrong, or I've done something. It's been like this all week. What have I done?"

It's a waterfall of words because he doesn't like not knowing what's wrong. It makes anxiety curl in his stomach, and makes him feel like an eleven-year-old boy again, who's scared one wrong move will lose him precious, newly-acquired friendships. He steps closer and takes her hands. His heart is beating hard against his ribcage.

"Please tell me what the matter is so that I can fix it."

So many emotions rush into Hermione's eyes. He can't read them in time before they're gone, and then she steps back, away from him. His hands fall to his sides and his fingers fold in until he can feel his nails pressing into his palms.

"I thought you were smarter than that."

Remus frowns. "I don't understand."

"I thought your education was more important to you than the opposite sex," Hermione says. She isn't looking at him. "It's NEWTs, isn't it? Finding out I was wrong is disappointing."

Remus blinks and takes a metaphoric step back that's only just shy of a literal one. His mouth opens and then closes. She baffles him.

"You're angry with me because I asked Melissa out?" he questions slowly. He's trying to piece it together in his head. "Isn't that a bit hypocritical? You're in a relationship with Sirius."

"That's different."

"Er… how?" Remus asks, and Hermione's head swings towards him. She looks annoyed.

"He doesn't distract me from my studies, that's how," she replies, and it's very close to a snap. "I don't  _let_  him distract me. I want you to do well, Remus, and being in a newly formed relationship will hinder that, I guarantee it will."

Remus scratches his head. "Who said anything about a relationship? It's one date, Hermione."

"Oh, you're the no commitment type now, are you? Just wham, bam, thank you ma'am?" she retorts, and this time it's definitely a snap. Insult curdles under Remus's breastbone, irritation warms his neck, and he answers without thinking.

"So what if I am? What's so wrong with that? It seemed to serve Sirius faithfully before he got together with you!"

"Sirius is  _not_  someone you should be imitating! He's a terrible role model!"

"It got him plenty of action though, didn't it?" Remus fires back angrily, and the  _'you included'_  just seems to hover in the air. Hermione's eyes go wide, and then her face is dark and furious.

"Fine!" she blusters, and her voice is high and shrill, "go date some random Hufflepuff and fail all your NEWTs! See if I care!"

She turns and storms from the classroom. Remus watches her go and sighs, regret making him feel uneasy. He thinks she has a proper reason to be angry with him now.

~0~

Two months pass and Remus continues to see Melissa. They don't 'date' in the true sense of the word. It's casual, whenever they want to see each other, something unspoken they both understand, and Remus feels guilty, because isn't he living up to what Hermione accused him of being? But it's a relief as well, because it doesn't take him long to remember that he  _can't_  date her, even if he wanted to.

He can't 'date' anyone. It isn't safe, and it isn't fair to them. So it stays casual, and while he hangs out with Melissa, and spends hours snogging her when he's not studying, and eventually loses his virginity in an event that's short and only satisfying for half the party, but which he rather enthusiastically makes up for, Hermione and Sirius fight.

A lot.

The undercurrent is now an 'outer' current. That polite, distant gulf between Remus and his best friend is vast, and he refuses to breach it when it's over something so feeble, but she isn't angry with him because all of her anger is directed at Sirius. There isn't any left over for Remus. Their arguments are constant and varied, and all of the houses witness them shouting at each other at some point.

Remus hates it. He wants to intervene, but doesn't know how or even if he should. He watches, but she doesn't want to talk about it, especially not with him. She isn't  _open_  to him, something that apparently rubs off on Sirius, because before long the animagus begins to ignore and avoid him too.

Sometimes Remus thinks maybe that's a good thing. He's hurting her, and it's only the distance between him and Hermione that's keeping him out of Sirius's face.

It's a full moon and Remus is about to head out to meet Madam Pomfrey when the shouting starts again. The common room is full but the fighting is expected now, so no one pays attention until their voices move to the boys' dormitory stairs.

"You're living in a dreamland, Hermione!" Sirius barks, voice echoing off the walls. "You're fucking delusional! You need to get your head out of the clouds and accept reality if you're ever going to be happy with your life, let alone make someone else happy!"

"Well, maybe you should go out and find someone who has the qualities you're after, since I obviously don't possess them!" Hermione hisses back, and her words fill the stairwell, dropping into dead silence. The common room waits and Remus stares unblinkingly at the darkened entrance. His muscles are locked.

"Maybe I should."

She gasps, and then there's an empty, wordless hollow. Suddenly a sob fills it, and she's a streak across the room, her hands over her face. Two doors slam above them and Remus is on his feet.

"No, Rem, you need to go, Lily'll get her. I'll go check on Sirius. Meet you later, yeah?"

The indecision is a painful thing, but Remus knows James is right. He looks towards Lily to see her already heading to her dorm, and relief makes the tension crack and dribble slightly before it shores up again. Remus grits his teeth and forcefully turns towards the portrait hole, and an hour later, he's pacing around the rotten little room he's claimed as his own in the upper floors of the Shack.

Where are they? The moon is about to rise, Remus can feel the damning orb it in his bones, and his fellow Marauders are missing. They've never been late before. It emphasizes the agitation, and the ache, and highlights the loneliness that's dug its way into him, knotting firmly in first year and blooming once a month since. It's a third part of him that never goes away, no matter how many companions he has during the night.

His blood vibrates and Remus's eyes bleed amber. They aren't here. They aren't here! The moonlight pours through the window, and it's then that he scents it, hemlock and old shoes flooding his senses. Shock, panic and horror are abrupt and suffocating, but it's too late, because a snarl starts low and turns into a whine, then a howl. His body explodes.

His last human thought is that he pities the boy creeping through the tunnel.

~0~

He wakes in a familiar bed, behind familiar curtains, with familiar pain pulsing in waves through his body, and a familiar hand holding his. Remus turns his head to stare at Hermione. Her cheek is lying on the mattress and her eyes are closed. A curl is sitting, quite daintily, on his shoulder.

His free hand reaches out, and it's a soft as he remembers.

She stirs. Her eyes blink open sleepily. "Remus?"

"What are you doing here?" he whispers. Hermione blinks again and sits back, and then something steamrolls across her face, and Remus is suddenly breathing hair as she climbs onto the bed and wraps her arms around him. She  _bodily hugging him_ , and the gulf just doesn't exist.

His hands rise and hover over her back. His head dips as he tries to see her face.

"Hey, hey, what's wrong? Hermione? What's the matter, love? Come on now, you can't…"

His voice dies as the memory of the night before marches through his mind, solidifying the more he concentrates, almost preening. He feels the colour drain from his face.

"Snape," he croaks, his brain replaying the snarling, spitting, foaming werewolf bowling through wall after wall, following the scent of hemlock and old shoes, of blood, and human, and  _hunger,_ and his rampage being halted by a stag, by  _pack_ , by a hurt in his side. Remus's hand touches his torso and encounters a thick bandage. There's shouting in his memory, James's voice, James screaming at Snape to get out of there, to run, and the werewolf is going mad because there's  _two_  human scents all of a sudden, one familiar but not, and it taunts and confuses and enrages him.

And then they're gone. The werewolf is alone, and he stays alone, for the rest of the night, until he's Remus again.

"Oh fuck," Remus whispers. He's staring at the ceiling, blood so cold he's physically shivering. "Oh fuck. Fuck.  _Fuck._  I nearly… he could have  _died._ I nearly  _killed_  him. I nearly…  _fuck._ "

"It wasn't you!"

The witch wrapped around him rears back, and her face is wild. There's tears on her cheeks.

"It wasn't you!" she repeats, and her voice is shrill again. "It was the wolf! You're separate! And it wasn't even  _his_  fault, he was just following instincts! There's one person to blame here, and only one!"

Confusion replaces the shock and revulsion. Remus frowns and sits up, ignoring his protesting body. He's surprised it isn't worse. "What are you talking about?"

"Snape's had his suspicions, but he could have never figured it all out on his own! This never would have happened if he hadn't opened his fucking mouth! I knew he was angry and upset, but I never would've thought-"

"Hermione,  _what are you talking about_?"

"She's talking about me."

He's standing at the end of the bed, and his face is a smooth mask, bone-white, skin stretched tight. His hands are trembling. His eyes are fathomless.

"Sirius? What…?"

"I sent Snape after you last night. I sent him down the tunnel, knowing you were transformed, knowing you'd attack and probably kill him. He's fully aware you're a werewolf, and the only reason he hasn't told everyone is because Dumbledore forbid him to."

The betrayal cuts, saws,  _slices_ , deep and endless. It shreds him, and Remus stares dumbly at Sirius, his heart slamming. He can't breathe. He can't comprehend. He can't  _believe._

"Why?"

The word is tiny and compressed and hideously hard to say. Sirius's hands ball.

"I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry, Remus."

The sharp  _crack_  of her hand meeting his cheek makes Remus jump, makes him aware that she's moved, and Sirius's head snaps to the side. When he turns back, there's a large red mark across the side of his face. He stares down at the furious witch and doesn't say a thing. He just looks at Hermione, eyes blank, and a snarl twists her expression, and her hand rises again.

"Don't," Remus mutters, and her hand stops mid-flight and falls to her side. Remus can see her shaking. Sirius doesn't move, doesn't speak, and the silence is acute. When  _she_  speaks, it's like glass cracking.

_Snap._

"I will never forgive you for this."

And then she's walking away, and Remus doesn't have the strength to call her back. He turns to Sirius, to watch him watch his ex-girlfriend leave, and the door closing brings the animagus's attention back to the werewolf, the movements of Sirius's body stilted and robotic.

They look at each other for a long time. Eventually, the mask that's holding Sirius's facial features in still, perfect alignment starts to crumble. His expression begins to resemble his trembling, balled-up hands, a window to his emotions.

They're a hurricane.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Fuck, Remus, sweet Christ, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I never meant… I don't know what I meant. I've been so angry and I've been taking it out on everyone, and then last night I was… and then Snivellus, he… I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. Please. I can't- I can't lose your friendship, Moony, please. Please."

Remus is silent, staring boy at the end of the bed who looks broken, and then he turns onto his side, lies down and closes his eyes.

"I'm tired. Can you go away now please?"

There isn't an answer. An audible swallow reaches Remus, and then hurrying footsteps shuffle across the room, and the door opens and closes for the second time. Remus's eyelids lift and he stares at the curtains, not able to sleep, insomnia plaguing him for the rest of his hospital stay and beyond.

It takes him a very long time to forgive Sirius.


	4. Like Family

Remus Lupin loves Hermione Granger.

She's on his back constantly, though he's the last person she needs to push, and seventh year passes in a blink of an eye. Before Remus knows it, they're graduating. He now has those coveted, shiny, golden qualifications behind his name, top of his class next to Hermione and Lily. He's happy, of course he is, but the achievement also leaves somewhat of a bitter taste in his mouth.

Because Remus knows that even with top marks in all his NEWTs, he doesn't have a very promising future. Not like Sirius and James, who are heading to the Auror Academy, and Lily, who wants to be a healer, and Hermione, who's tossing up between a position in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and the Department of Mysteries. Or even like Peter, who's happy to work part-time in Diagon Alley for the time being, so that he can spend the rest of his time with the mystery girl he's dated all through seventh year that no one seems to know anything about.

Remus can get the highest marks in a century and still have nothing to show for it, all because of what happens to him one night a month. People are dubious with werewolves like that. But he's accepted this, really, and he still feels the glow of pride for having done his best and for getting the grades to show that. He's accomplished personal goals, even if it can't go further than that, and he and the rest of his friends step out of Hogwarts, into the world, all eager and positive and optimistic.

Oh how naïve they are.

It begins with an invitation for Dumbledore. They go because they're curious, and because they want to help. The war has hit its stride over their last year of schooling, and it seems that everyone knows someone affected in some way. A group opposing He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and his followers called the Order of the Phoenix has formed, and Sirius and James still have just enough arrogance to see it as another way to be the conquering heroes of the piece.

Remus sits in the first meeting and smirks a little as he remembers Lily's reaction when James tries to forbid her from attending, for her own good.

Her brow, darkly red and sharply pointed, arches up. Her voice is haughty. Her eyes are dangerous.

"You don't actually think you can _forbid_ me from doing something, do you, Potter?" she drawls, and Hermione snorts with laughter at the way James backtracks rather rapidly, saying that he only wants her to be safe. One of Remus's favourite things about their final year is watching the romantic relationship develop between James and Lily. Lily shocks all four house tables silent when James absentmindedly asked her out to Hogsmeade early one October morning, and she answers with a quiet "all right," after a moment's thought.

You could hear a pin drop.

"What?" James squeaks, gawking at the girl in disbelief and breaking the stupefied silence. The room begins to mutter and a small smirk touches Lily's mouth.

"You asked, Potter. I just answered. Pick your jaw up off the ground before someone trips over it, yeah?"

She gets up and leaves the hall, head high though seemingly in a hurry, and Hermione grabs Remus's hand and drags him out after her. The three of them converge at 'their' table in the library. Brown and green eyes stare at Lily, who's fidgeting with an arithmancy textbook, both pairs demanding explanations.

"I just… I don't… he's not like I thought he was, okay?" Lily says as she looks up, and she sounds defensive. Her fingers are tight around the book she's suddenly clutching, and Remus doesn't know whether she's trying to get the point across to them or to herself. "He's different. He's not just stupid pranks and cutting remarks anymore. Like in fifth year when Remus got drunk, and he was all concern and take charge. It's why I was so disappointed when he went after Severus later that year. And then in sixth, when Sirius went off the rails and did what he did, and James stuck by him despite Sirius not deserving it, because he knew Sirius needed to have someone in his corner. And yes, Remus, I do know about your furry little problem." She turns and pins Remus with a pointed look, pressing the book into her chest and making the panic already winding through Remus's head grow in volume. "You stop that now. I've known almost as long as Hermione and the boys have, and I'm still here, aren't I? I know about your dorm-mates too. You lot aren't nearly as discreet as you think you are."

Hermione hides her smile behind her hand and Remus's mouth looks much like James's did in the Great Hall. Guilt trickles through the fading panic. He hasn't realized until now how much she's been left out. The expression in Lily's eyes says she sees the guilt as well, and she's staring him down, not pleased with that either.

Remus is the one who looks away.

"So you like James being all masterful, do you?" Hermione asks in a sly voice, and the question draws Lily's attention from Remus. A blush floods her cheeks.

"No, no," she answers, and now she's the one imitating James. Her tone's a squeak, and her face is still red, and Remus and Hermione share a smirk. Of course she doesn't. "It's just he's changed. I ran into him and Sirius in Diagon Alley over summer, and we spent the day together when Sirius buggered off somewhere, and he was friendly and intelligent and funny, and he didn't crack a single joke at my expense, and well… he's changed. Matured. I… I l-like who he is. I can give him a chance, can't I?"

"'Course you can, Lils," Hermione says, smiling. Remus nods in agreement and keeps to himself that James hasn't _really_ changed. He's been like that all along. Lily just hasn't been ready to see it.

Now, Remus thinks that Lily giving James a chance was a fantastic decision on her part. James hasn't wasted it. Their Head Boy and Girl have their own flat, and Remus knows James intends to ask Lily to marry him as soon as he's gathered enough courage. And since he's carrying the ring around in his pocket with him, Remus is sure it'll be soon.

The meeting is short and sadly lacking in solid information, and Remus is feeling more than a little disillusioned when it's over. He's quick to leave, but stops when Dumbledore calls him back, telling the others he'll catch up with them.

Fifteen minutes later, he walks from the room with a stomach full of knots.

"What's wrong?" Hermione asks, frowning at him when she sees his face. Remus sucks in a breath and shakes off the unease, and the guilt, and the quiet disappointment he felt steadily streaming from Dumbledore, because she's the reason he's asked for time to think about this. Her, and Lily and James, and Sirius and Peter. It's dangerous, what he's asked him to do, very dangerous, and he knows they'd be violently against it. Then, of course, there's the way he'd have to lose himself, lose the human and embrace the wolf, _give in_ to the monster, and that thought…

It terrifies him.

"Nothing," he says, and it's obvious Hermione doesn't believe him. He continues past her without another word. He doesn't know what to say, or what to feel, and he can't help feeling like he's letting everyone down by leaning towards saying no to this mission.

He should've figured that he never really have a choice.

~0~

The murder of Melissa Murphy shocks everyone. She's the first person who's died that the youngest and newest members of the Order truly _know,_ and Remus sits in the meeting after they've been informed, draughty-headed and numb. A hand takes his and marigold teases his senses, but he can't look at her. He can't move. The blow is too big, the grief and regret too consuming.

Melissa and he had never become more than casual. 'Friends who shag,' Sirius calls them after Remus begins acting normally around him again. Remus never offers more, and she never pushes for it, and they part on good terms when she graduates the year before he does. He never loved her, but he _liked_ her, and now she's dead.

She's dead because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and was torn apart by what is assumed to be a werewolf pack.

He doesn't hear the rest of the meeting. Hermione doesn't move from his side, and he has to forcefully shoo her and the others away when it ends.

"I'll do it."

There's both sympathy and concern in Dumbledore's eyes when he turns to Remus.

"My boy, are you sure? I don't want you to make this decision lightly."

"I'll do it," Remus repeats, deadpan, and then walks away from him. The next day an owl arrives with a coded message, and three days after that he's sitting in James and Lily's flat, watching Lily show Hermione, Alice and Marlene the ring on her finger. She's bubbly and laughing and _happy_ , and telling Hermione she's maid of honour, and James's grin all but bursts with pride. The mood is infectious, and Remus only has one thought.

_Family._

"I'm moving to Denmark," comes pouring out, and the abrupt announcement quite literally shuts the excited prattle down.

"What? Why?" Hermione demands, rising to her feet. Remus holds her gaze.

"I've been offered a job over there. Busywork on a magical fungi and herb farm. Dumbledore's organized it, and I can't turn it down. It's not like jobs for people like me are a knut a dozen."

"For how long?" James asks with a frown, and Remus's heart is slamming when he pulls his attention away from a stock-still Hermione.

"A few months, maybe more. I'll take what I can get."

"But what about…" Sirius's voice dies and his eyes flick to Marlene, Alice, and Frank Longbottom, who's sitting quietly at the side of the gathering, only really there because of Alice. He clears his throat and looks back at Remus, eyes sharp. "Moony, you can't."

The message comes across loud and clear, and Remus shakes his head. The Order knows he's a werewolf. It isn't something he can keep to himself, and besides, he's registered. All they would've had to do is look up the records. But they don't know about James, Sirius and Peter, the latter not in attendance due to already planning on meeting what Sirius is positive is his imaginary girlfriend's parents, and the four young men intend to keep it that way.

Remus is very much aware what being away and spending every full moon without his animagus friends by his side for the first time in years will be like. But it's not like he can take them with him. He needs to immerse himself completely in his beast, in the packs that rumours say roam the multiple uninhabited islands that help make up the country, and he can't do that with _his_ pack following in his wake. Not only is it too dangerous, he's also not allowed to tell them about the mission.

It's need to know, and as far as Dumbledore is concerned, they don't need to know. Remus agrees. They'd only worry if they knew.

"I'll be fine," he says firmly, looking at Sirius and James, who both look like they want to protest. Neither do, and it's Lily who speaks next.

"You'll be back for the wedding, won't you?"

"'Course I will, Lils," Remus replies with a grin, inwardly praying he's not lying to her about that particular point. Dumbledore hadn't given him a timeframe, but it can't be more than a few months. He'll find out what he needs to know by then, surely. Lily's shoulders sink with relief and the conversation looks like it's going to pick up again, until Hermione cuts in.

"When do you leave?"

She hasn't looked away from him since he made the announcement. Her eyes drill into his skin, and Remus wants desperately to squirm. Instead, he turns to look at her with a carefully neutral expression.

"Tomorrow."

" _What_?"

"Tomorrow?"

"And you're only telling us _now_?"

Remus holds up his hand to halt the explosion of protests. "You're finding out right after I have. It was only confirmed a couple of days ago, and it's so quick because they need someone ASAP. I'm lucky they're willing to take me on, knowing what I am. Plus, Dumbledore wants me to see if I can discreetly scope out support for the Order, and the sooner than begins, the better. So tomorrow it is."

There's a rather disgruntled pause, and then James sighs and says, "well, we better make this a hell of a celebration then, yeah?" before he gets up and disappears into the kitchen, coming back with several bottles of butterbeer, elf-made wine and firewhiskey. Sirius reaches for and dispenses them eagerly, and everyone but Remus is soon three sheets to the wind.

The werewolf is chuckling at the way James is clumsily bracing Lily to stop her falling off her chair (and taking the chance to grope her at the same time), when marigold twines through his head.

"They're going to figure out you're lying to them eventually."

Green eyes lock on brown. "I'm not lying to anyone."

"Bullshit," Hermione says softly. She's studying him like he's a broken-down engine that she needs to figure out how to get running again, and her eyes are a lot clearer than three quarters of a bottle of wine to herself should allow. Her head cocks. "What are you doing, Remus?"

The sandy-haired wizard's eyes narrow. "I'm going to work on an herb and fungi farm in Denmark, Hermione. You need to let this go."

"You need to tell me the truth, and then maybe I'll let this go."

"Don't you trust me?" Remus fires back. Hermione looks startled.

"Of course I do!"

"Then start acting like it," he says, and his voice is curt, because not only is he insulted, he's also more than a little uneasy at how well she reads him. Everyone else bought it. Why didn't she?

He gets up, crosses the room, and throws himself down next to a snoring Frank, and an hour later sees him and everyone else flooing to his, Peter's and Sirius's flat, because when he says he needs to go home and sleep, Lily begins to panic that she won't see him again before he leaves, and James makes the suggestion that they all camp out at Remus's so they can see him in the morning. Remus can't help the smile on his face when they tumble through the fireplace, one that's wider the next morning when they wake up with groans and sore heads, wondering why they're all passed out on the floor. His bags are packed, shrunk, and stuffed in his pocket, his portkey will leave in five minutes, and his friends are complaining about the brightness of a sun that hasn't even risen yet.

 _This_ is why he's doing it. He can't keep them wrapped up in cotton wool, but he can do whatever's possible to keep them safe. He _needs_ them to be safe, even if it's at the expense of his own safety. He knows that what he digs out from within the packs probably won't be what turns the war's tides, but if it stops what happened to Melissa from happening to them or anyone else…

Nothing's more important than doing what he can to keep his loved ones out of harm's way.

"You going to leave grumpy with me?"

Marigold slinks over his skin, and his chest tightens, and Remus turns around and wraps Hermione up in his arms, breathing in that ever present scent. She sighs and the sound catches in her throat, and her face is in his neck, her breath on his skin, and she fits, and Remus is startled with the random thought of how exactly _right_ she fits, like she's made for his arms. He blinks, and Hermione pulls back. Her eyes are fierce when she takes his face between her hands.

"Be careful," she whispers, something deep in her expression that sets Remus's heart sprinting. "Please be careful. I don't know what it is that you're doing, but… gods, if you die on me…"

"I won't," he murmurs, staring into tear-bright eyes. Her lips press together and she nods, and then her hands leave his face and she steps back. Lily takes her place, and not long after, the toilet brush that Dumbledore has arranged as his transportation begins to glow, and he has to pull away from the hugging and the goodbyes, lest he miss it. He picks it up and smiles at his friends.

His family.

"I'll write," he promises as the glow brightens, and at the last minute he turns and all he can see is bright, endless chocolate brown, and then the portkey activates.

~0~

Living within a wild werewolf pack is not what one would term a fun ride. It takes a while to find them, and when he does, he finds that the men and women in the pack are more animal than human, even when they are human. Remus has to fight his way in and then give up most of himself to stay. But he's aware that that would be the case, and in Dumbledore's words, it's for the greater good.

The little fungi farm is actually a real thing, the owner an Order supporter, and since they already believe he's living there, Remus arranges for the place to be his mail drop-off centre. Once every two weeks he travels to the farm to collect his letters from his friends and from his Order contact, and he writes back whenever he can, a task that becomes difficult and slows down in frequency as the months pass. As a result, the letters from his family get more and more agitated, more and more worried, and Lily and James's wedding is only a month away when all of his mail begins to parrot a single sentence in various forms.

_You are coming to the wedding, aren't you?_

It pains Remus every time he reads it, because he doesn't know if he can. The full moons are long, and so cold, and indescribably agonizing, both emotionally and physically. Fighting his way in is nothing compared to the clashes that happen when everyone's a wolf and hierarchy is challenged. But he feels he's getting somewhere, finally, and if he leaves… he's torn.

What's more important?

Hermione takes the decision out of his hands one afternoon, a week before the wedding, when he's on his way to the farm and a smoking red envelope appears in the air in front of him. Recognizing it instantly, relief shoots through him that he isn't still in camp when it arrives.

Nothing stops a howler from finding its intended target. Remus sighs, takes the envelope gingerly and pries it open.

"IF YOU DON'T GET YOUR ARSE BACK HERE IN TIME FOR THE REHEARSAL, REMUS JOHN LUPIN, SO HELP ME MERLIN, I'LL COME DOWN THERE AND DRAG YOU HOME MYSELF! YOU HAVE TWO DAYS!"

The envelope fizzes with heat and collapses in on itself and another sigh escapes, resignation dragging at his limbs. Well, he hasn't got a choice now. He can't have Hermione show up, and she will if he doesn't do as he's told. He's just going to have to deal with the fallout when he gets back. He continues towards the farm to write his handler, and two days later he's pulling open a heavy door of a grand church and slowly walking down the aisle towards a casually dressed couple standing at the front, a handful of others surrounding them.

"Then there's the vows and so forth, I, Lily Evans, take you, James- _Remus_!"

"Oi, that's not my surname," James protests, but he's grinning from ear to ear as Lily flies back down the aisle, and Remus finds himself swamped with redheaded female, the force of her body flinging itself at him knocking him back a step. Ginger and raspberries surrounds him and Remus relaxes for what feels like literally the first time in months.

"You came."

"I said I would, didn't I?" he answers gruffly into her hair, drawing her warmth into him. He hasn't realized how much he's missed her. "I'm sorry I couldn't give you a decisive yes. Wasn't sure if I was going to get the time off. The boss is right strict about that sort of thing."

Lily sniffs and pulls away from him. "Well, at least you're here now," she says, taking his hand and smiling shakily. "Come on, there's a spot at the front for you."

She leads Remus forward and into more arms. James hugs him hard and then passes him on to Pete, who passes him on to Sirius. The raven-haired wizard slaps his back and steps back, peering at his face with eyes that try their best not to look blatantly concerned.

"Mate, you look like shit."

"Thanks, Padfoot, that's just what I needed to hear," Remus states dryly, and Sirius grins and his mouth opens to reply with what is probably a smart comment, but a hand taking Remus's chin snaps it shut.

She hasn't grown any taller. The observation is absurd, because of _course_ she hasn't, but it's Remus's only thought when she draws his head down and turns it from side to side, brown eyes taking in the fresh scar marring his cheek, just under his eye. Remus swallows and stands placidly as those eyes travel from his face, over his body and then back up again, now taking in the ratty clothing that hangs off his frame and the paleness of his skin. Her brow puckers and an irritated huff throws years of memories through the werewolf's mind.

"He's right. You haven't been taking care of yourself, have you?"

Remus doesn't say anything. He can't, because he's desperately weary all of a sudden, and he can't get his tongue to form words. It's like he's been constantly running on adrenalin, and now that he's home and safe, even for a little while, there's nothing left in him to keep him going. His silence has weight, and it turns Hermione's frown into a scowl. She lets go of his chin and steps back into line beside Alice and Marlene, and Lily takes her cue and follows suit.

"Here, Moony, you're behind Sirius. Budge up, Wormtail, that's it. Now we're set."

The rehearsal is over not long after, and Remus spends the next three days lost within his family, watching and slowly recharging, and rejoicing when James and Lily become Mr and Mrs Potter. He drinks and celebrates, and comes fairly close to getting trolleyed, and then he slips his belongings back into his pocket once the Potters' portkey whisks them away on their honeymoon.

The holiday's over.

"You don't have to go back."

He turns to look at her. She's still wearing her maid of honour dress, a slinky red concoction that she looks a picture in, even with her hair wilder than usual due to dancing for hours on end. In fact, that makes it look better in Remus's opinion. Hermione hasn't spoken to him much during his break, but Remus is actually grateful for it. He's been feeling sort of off-balance since he first saw her, more than just how discombobulating it is to be in society again, and he doesn't know why. It confuses him, and he hasn't had the chance to sort through it in his head, there's been too much going on. He doesn't much like it.

"Yeah, I do," he says, and his voice is flat, and final, and there's no reply from Hermione. Her fingers are laced together in front of her, and she doesn't move as he whispers the word to activate the portkey. For the second time, her eyes are the last thing he sees before he returns to animal and instinct.

The next time he sees her is at the birth of Harry James Potter, and it's even worse than before.


	5. Nothing Like Family

Remus Lupin loves Hermione Granger.

He carries letter after letter spelled to his ribs. Sometimes they contain sheets of precise, slanted writing, and sometimes they contain only a few, brusque words, but they're always scented with marigold, and they're his anchor. He needs an anchor. Remus is human, he knows he is, but as time marches on, the months passing cease to have true meaning to him. He counts in fortnightly intervals, by the full moons and the trips to the farm, and the letters remind him who he is and why he's doing this. Why he's putting himself through this.

Because at times he's no longer sure what his mission is, or why he makes the trips to the farm. Sometimes he's confused over the constant letters, because he doesn't know who James and Lily and Sirius and Peter are, though he gets less from the final name. The scents on the letters are familiar, so painfully familiar, and Remus can almost place them, but they're _just_ out of reach _._

And then a new letter arrives, the scent strong, and the marigold cuts through the fuzziness and the doubt, and Remus knows who he is.

He knows who he is.

He's drowning in the werewolf. It's inhumane, living the way he is, but he has to do it. He has to stay, because he's risen through the ranks, and he's _so close_. He hears a lot more, and he knows _someone's_ leading the packs and working with the Dark Lord, but he can't see that final playing piece. He's stuck in a rut, slowly losing himself to the dark creature under his skin, and his handler says Dumbledore's suggesting he give it up. It's too much for him.

It's the wrong thing to say. Remus is stubborn, and this is the only thing he can do for the Order, the only thing he's good at. What use is he other than a spy? If he could just get to the top, find out exactly what paths have been taken and how far along them they've travelled, then maybe he can get the packs to switch directions. It's not impossible, he just needs the chance _._ Plus, the longer he's here, the more they trust him, and trust is a precious commodity that isn't handed over at the drop of a hat. His position is solid, but precarious close to falling away at the same time, and if he leaves now…

So, he stays. He stays and gets letters mentioning things that mean hardly anything to him when he's in pack, and take on greater, _real_ meaning when he's at the farm and he's clearheaded. Death is a constant in pack, but life is a constant in the letters. Words and sentences like _pregnant,_ and _it's a boy,_ and _we've decided on Harry,_ and _only two months to go,_ jump out at him.

So do _you've been away so long,_ and _we want you here for the birth,_ and _I wish you were here, Remus. Why won't you come home?_

He can't write back. He can't. He _can't._

He doesn't have the words in him.

He's fixing a marigold letter to his chest and prowling out along the path back towards the others when a bright, shining light flies out of the sky and settles onto the ground in front of him. It flutters its wings out and shakes its head, and Remus's rattily mind whispers _patronus,_ and then his old headmaster is speaking through its beak.

"It's enough, Mr Lupin. You've done enough for now. Lily Potter is due to give birth in less than a week, and you're to come home for the event. Everyone needs a break, my boy."

The patronus flares brighter and reaches for Remus, and the werewolf whines because he knows he can't escape. They blink from existence, and the next thing Remus knows, he's in a contraption-cluttered office at the top of a tower, at the height of a school, and there's an old wizard with a long, white beard sitting behind a desk and twinkling at him.

The twinkle dies very quickly. Dumbledore turns to one of the portraits on the wall and says quietly, "if you could bring Poppy up here for me please?" while Remus curls up into a ball on the floor and shakes, a low, frightened snarl pouring continuously through the airless box he's trapped inside.

~0~

It takes three days for him to come back to himself. They keep his mildly sedated and enchant the ceiling above his bed in the Hospital Wing to mirror the ceiling in the Great Hall, and Remus doesn't take his eyes from it unless he's asleep. He sleeps a lot. His dreams are a twisted mess of wolf and human, but on the third day he dreams of bushy hair, and green eyes, and a dog, a stag and a rat, and he wakes feeling solid and cold and _there._ He blinks up at the fast moving clouds in the ceiling, drawing in deep gulps of slightly humid, stale air, then turns his head, eyes wide.

"The baby," he croaks, and the wizard sitting next to his bed puts down _The Quibbler_ and smiles.

"Welcome back, Mr Lupin. No need to panic, Lily's still gestating. Her healer is positive she'll run overtime, so you can afford to rest a little while longer. How are you feeling?"

 _Like I've been killed and come alive again,_ Remus thinks, but he doesn't say that. Instead he chooses not to answer the question, closing his eyes. He doesn't want to look at his old headmaster, because he's afraid if he does, he'll start shouting. And he doesn't have the strength to shout at all.

Besides, what's the point? It's not as if knowing before he left that he might actually _become_ the monster living within him would've stopped him from going.

Nothing would've stopped him from going.

"Remus?"

The young werewolf turned onto his side, showing Dumbledore his back. He can hear the pause from his visitor as if it was audible, and then the chair squeaks.

"I'll let you know when she goes into labour. Rest now, my boy."

_I'm not your boy._

But he is, and it's this thought that has him staring blindly at the curtains, his mind turning over until exhaustion claims him again, and it's this thought that has him parroting over and over, "I'm fine, I'm better, I want to see my friends," for the four days following. It takes a while to convince Madam Pomfrey, who Remus thinks must live at the school even during summer, but she finally allows him leave, and Remus hurries up to Dumbledore's office, his borrowed robes tangling around his feet. Perhaps knowing that he isn't one of Remus's favourite people at the moment, the headmaster doesn't say anything when the younger wizard barges into his office. All he does is wave his hand at the floo.

Remus throws the powder, steps into the flames and calls out, "15 Buckburn Crescent!" The green fire engulfs him, and then he's walking out the other side into a kitchen he hasn't been in in countless months, and there's a wand tip pointing right at his nose. The werewolf's eyes cross briefly as he focuses on it, and then he's looking up to blink at the owner.

"Sirius?"

"What idea did Remus Lupin nix as an end of year prank in fourth year due to believing it too dangerous?"

The scents in the house are overwhelming, and his mind's muddled, and he's confused and a little frustrated by the question. "Sirius, I don't underst-"

"Answer the question or I will stun you."

Sandy brows wing. "You wanted to charm the suits of armour to pull stone from Hogwarts' walls and set up a muggle ten pin bowling game, the students, Slytherins in particular, the pins. And I wasn't the only one who said no. Even James didn't go for that one."

Sirius's face relaxed and his wand lowers, and then a look of contempt replaces the hard, professional expression.

"Well looks who's finally decided to grace us with his presence," he sneers, eyeing Remus up and down. "Thought the kid was going to be Hogwarts age before you decided to show up at the door."

The disdain is surprising. He knows his friends likely aren't very happy with him, and they'll be even more so when they figure out he can't give them a real reason for staying away so long, but he isn't anticipating such a strong reaction. He frowns and opens his mouth to reply, but then a sharp _crack_ rings through the house and marigold floods his muddled mind, and the wolf that he's assured Poppy Pomfrey is firmly settled back into his subconscious kicks him in the teeth.

He's moving before his humanity can catch up. She shrieks when he wraps his arms around her from behind, and his body folds down to the floor, and he's snuffling at her, _sniffing_ her, drawing in the scent that frequency has made the most familiar pack to the wolf instincts and which kept the human relatively sane. He buries his face into her shoulder and runs his nose along her throat, sighing in a soft rumble, and she stiffens.

No. She stiffens _more._

The tightness of the body squashed into his lap brings Remus to his senses. He blinks and pulls his head away, and she's like a block of wood in his arms, her muscles so taut she'll break in the breeze.

She doesn't want him touching her.

The thought slinks through his mind and he's on his feet in an instant, Hermione placed just so, and he's standing on the opposite side of the room with his hands behind his back. His gut is churning and the wall above her head is fascinating.

"I apologize," he says quietly. He knows he sounds formal, stilted, but he can't help it. She's never reacted to him touching her like this before, in any way. He doesn't know what to make of it. Has her opinion of him being a werewolf somehow changed? Has everyone's?

A throat clears. "No, no, it's all right, it's, ah, it's my fault. I didn't know it was you. You startled me for a moment."

She's lying. It isn't a very good lie and his eyes fall to her face, which is flushed. She's fidgeting too, and there's something in his chest that has nails filed to the cutting point, thin and sharp. He takes a breath.

Ginger and raspberries, with something else, something like earth, encased inside.

"Well, at least we know you still love us," Lily jokes, and Remus turns, noting James and Sirius with wands in their hands, and then his eyes go wide because she's _huge._ Her belly's a beach ball, and she's standing leaning against James with one hand on her back. Remus's mouth falls open and Lily's eyes narrow to slits.

"Don't you dare make a single comment, Remus Lupin," she growls, and suddenly Remus is laughing because it's normal. She's normal.

Nobody else is.

He can't remember the last time he'd laughed.

"I was just going to say that you're beautiful," he grins, and Lily's expression melts. In contrast, James scowls.

"Why does he get a positive reaction when he compliments you and I get a snap and a black look?"

"He didn't get me in this state, did he?" Lily retorts haughtily, pulling away from her husband. She begins towards Remus ( _lumbers,_ Remus thinks, but decides is wise to continue keeping to himself), pulling him in for a hug when he hurries to meet her.

"You've got a lot of explaining to do," she murmurs in his ear, and Remus sighs.

"What if I can't explain?" he murmurs back. Lily doesn't answer, instead letting him go and taking his hands. He panics when he realizes where she's trying to take them. Christ, what if he hurts it? Him?

A chuckle turns his head and hands take his resisting ones. "It's the miracle of life, Remus. Touch and gush now, while it's still a miracle and not a squalling, smelly, endlessly demanding humanoid."

Lily splutters. "My son will _not_ be smelly!" she cries, glaring at Hermione. The witch rolls her eyes and spreads Remus's hands across the beach ball. Lily gasps an "oh!" and the wizard crouching in front of her goes very still, eyes locked on his hands.

It's rippling. Flowing in waves under her sweater, punching Remus's palms, tapping along his fingers. It's Harry in there, he can feel Prongs's son, and it's astounding. Remus swallows heavily and looks up at the green eyes watching him.

"I'm sorry."

Lily smiles, and though the tension is still fair pumping from James and Sirius (where's Peter?), he feels some of his own anxiety drain. Hermione grins at him and pats his shoulder, and he slowly stands up.

He's still touching her stomach when everything happens. Lily let's out another "oh!" and this time she bends at the waist with it, and her beach ball's _clenching._ James is at her side within the next breath.

"Love? Is it time?"

"Oh God. I-I think so... James!"

"S'all right, I got you. Okay. Okay, okay, fuck. Hermione, um, the healer?"

"On it," Hermione says as she turns and heads for the floo. "Take her to the bedroom, I'll be there in a minute."

"Right. Right. You can move, Lils? Shall I pick you up?"

"Try it, Potter, and this'll be the last kid you ever have! I'm in labour, not dying!"

She turns and shuffles down the hallway, James hovering around her, and Remus is alone with a silent Sirius and Hermione speaking into the floo, the witch eventually moving back to let the healer through.

"Looks like he was waiting for you," she comments as she and the healer pass him on the way to the bedroom, and she's grinning, but it's strained, fake, trying far too hard, none of the easy camaraderie from months or even moments before. Unease curdles in his stomach.

There's something more going on here than just his friends not liking him being away so long.

Remus doesn't take the chance to question this sudden knowledge over the next fourteen hours. It doesn't seem like the right time to ask Sirius what's going on, or even Peter when he finally apparates into the kitchen three hours into the screaming and swearing and panting coming from the bedroom. The three wizards sit at the table and wait, and Sirius's eyes on Remus are an x-ray. Constantly. When he does speak to him, it's cryptic, biting remarks.

The tension folds itself into Remus's blood and makes it buzz. Then, on July 31st, at 5:26 am, the angry cry of a newborn pierces the silence. All three men stand up and ten minutes later James stumbles into the kitchen.

"I have a son," he mutters, and his legs give out. Sirius catches him before he collapses completely and hugs him tight. James's shoulders heave, once, twice, and then he's climbing from Sirius's arms, and his face is _ecstatic._

"I have a son!" he shouts. Sirius barks a laugh and hugs him again, and Peter is slapping him on the back, and Remus's smile is oceans-wide, and it's automatic to walk over and hug him himself. James's arms are slow in lifting, but they do rise, and the relief Remus feels nearly brings him to _his_ knees.

Sirius scowls. The expression doesn't leave his face until they pile into the bedroom, James whispering loudly that they need to keep it down as Lily's asleep. All attention turns to the cradle by the bed, and the baby's swaddled so you can't see much of him, but what you can see is wrinkly, and red, and alien, and _tiny_ , and simply amazing. An extra chamber in Remus's heart opens, and he walks over on careful feet, his hand reaching out but pausing before making contact with the so very little human being.

"That's my godson," Sirius says, and there's absolutely nothing in his voice to indicate it's a warning. But Remus looks up.

"It is." And then he's stepping back and letting Sirius, Peter and James in, and it feels like he's on the outside, hanging around the edges, not quite included where he's always been included before. It makes the unease bubble up, and when he glances over at the head of the cradle and meets chocolate brown eyes that are studying him intently, the unease grows worse.

It doesn't go away for seven months. Remus can't answer the questions that are always there in Sirius's eyes, and Hermione's, and he finds he's too afraid to question why they're there in the first place. Lily never questions, and James is tentative for a while, but eventually he relaxes and it's as normal as it can be with Sirius treating him like a pariah. Peter's all over the place when he's around, which isn't often at all. Lily says it's because his mother is sick and his girlfriend demands all of the attention he's not giving to that.

There's a different, separate quality to some of the questions in Hermione's eyes. Remus doesn't know what it is, and it doesn't hang around long, fading a week or so after Harry's born, and then there's disappointment there. And hurt. He can't make sense of it, and once again his insecurities prevent him from investigating further. So he pretends that the constant pressure surrounding them all is caused by the escalating war and the Order missions everyone but him goes on. It's uncomfortable and affords him very little sleep, and it makes the moons worse instead of better, so much so that at times he's wishes his friends didn't accompany him on those nights. The only time he's not on edge is when he's with Lily and Harry.

The baby's a joy. Remus loves him with everything he has in him. He feels years younger in Harry Potter's presence, and it shows in the carefree laughter, and in the lines on his face smoothing out. James is more himself when Remus is around Harry as well, and when Sirius is there, holding back any visible mistrust for the sake of Lily and the baby, it's almost, _almost_ , like happier times. Remus has hope.

Then Dumbledore throws that hope out the window.

"You want me to go back," Remus says flatly, not a question, one afternoon when the headmaster calls him to Hogwarts. The old wizard sighs and nods his head, looking forlorn.

"I'm truly sorry, Remus, but new, very important information has come to light, and we need to know as much about Voldemort's movements as possible. I wouldn't ask you if there was any other way."

 _But you're not asking, are you?_ Remus thinks, mind dull. He listens, resigned, as the Order's leader outlines ways for him to stay healthy and whole and him while with the packs, and less than a day later, he's packed up what little he has in his room in Lily and James's flat.

There isn't much there to begin with. Remus grimaces and leaves the room, not at all looking forward to what comes next. His footsteps are loud in the carpeted hallway and the voices in the kitchen cut off.

He looks from person to person and _knows_ something's happening that doesn't have anything to do with him leaving.

"You're going back."

Her voice is the same as his was when Dumbledore told him what he needed to do. Remus swallows and looks over to meet eyes that haven't shown him true friendship in months. There's always an underlining quality in them, always those questions; questions that are screaming at him now.

"Yes," he says, and everyone's faces, James', Sirius's, Hermione's, and even Lily's, shut down.

"Why?"

"Because I have to."

"You don't," James says with the force of a dart. His arms are wrapped around Lily and Harry and his eyes are mutinous. "You can stay here."

Remus wonders when they figured it out. His chest feels empty and his hand shakes as he runs it through his hair. He'd always known they'd hate him doing this. "I can't. I'm needed. I don't have a choice."

"There's _always_ a choice, Remus!" Hermione snaps, and his head whips towards her to see her eyes wet and fury rolling off her in waves. "You _don't_ have to do this! You _don't_ have to make yourself into a monster!"

The laughter takes even Remus by surprise. It flows from him like it's never going to end, and then it does, dying into something that sounds a lot like a sob. "A monster? A _monster_? For fuck's sake, Hermione, I already _am_ one! It's what allows me to do this! You should be grateful!"

There's dead silence. Then, Sirius explodes.

"Grateful?! You fucking bastard, I'll kill you!"

He rushes towards Remus, and Lily shouts "no!", and Harry's crying, and Hermione gets in his way, and Remus apparates. He feels nothing when his handler hands him the portkey.

~0~

It takes six months to find them. They're not in Denmark anymore, and Remus lives rough as he tracks them over the Continent. He's back in England when he does find them, and it's a nonstop fight, a bloody, endless battle, because he's been away for thirteen months and he's no longer considered part of the pack. He's at the bottom of the ladder again, privy to nothing, and he stays that way for two months.

His quest is made pointless at Hallowe'en.

He hears along with everyone else. The news filters through the packs and Remus sits as still as stone, blank-minded and screaming-hearted, because it can't be true. It _can't_ be. The world rejoices and hails Harry Potter a hero, and forgets about Lily and James, because the You-Know-Who's vanished and all is now right in the world.

They don't linger on the deaths of Harry's parents. But Remus does, and on the death of Peter, and on the fact that there was a traitor he never knew about and that it was Sirius all along. _Sirius._ He never knew about Voldemort targeting the Potters, or about the Fidelius, and it _destroys_ him to know that the last thing he said to Lily, and to James, was in the form of an argument.

They died thinking the worst of him.

The pain in his chest blooms savagely, and he flees from the packs, ending up God knows where, and his screaming heart takes voice as he bellows at the sky until his voice gives out and he falls to the ground in a trembling, weeping heap.

His brain is repeating a single name when he's able to function again. He doesn't think of fighting and allegations, he just knows he needs her. So he apparates to her flat.

She's standing in the middle of her bedroom with her head in her hands.

"Hermione."

It's a whisper that brings her head up when the sound of appiration didn't. She jolts when she sees him. Her eyes are wild.

"No, no, Remus, you can't be here! Go, please go, please! Leave! I can't do this with you here! Go away! Please!"

Her voice is breaking and Remus goes to her without a word. She fights him, slapping at his arms and trying to push him away, but his hold is firm, and then she's crying heavy, choking tears, from deep inside her, and repeating "we thought it was you," over and over. They sink to the floor, and Remus rocks her and grieves right along with her, his own body shaking. It's an unknown amount of time before either can pull away.

Her face is red and swollen when she looks into his. His thumb brushes over her cheek, and her eyes are drowning in sorrow, and something just _clicks_.

The epiphany is soft, gentle, a quiet nudge in the right direction to make it all fit, and it doesn't take him by surprise at all. Not really. Because of course this is the way it's supposed to be. This is the way it's always been, even when it wasn't. It's been there all along, a certainty, buoyant and absolute, and he doesn't understand why he's only seeing it now. Is he really that blind?

It would be the most natural thing in the world to lean down and kiss her. So he does. And he thinks that maybe magic has more than one form as he slowly takes her mouth, because this is magical. She's magical. She's perfect and he kisses her, dancing his tongue over hers, drawing back and sipping from her lips, exploring her and her taste thoroughly, and wanting more. Needing more. His fingers are pressing hard into her cheeks and she's letting out little sounds that are intoxicating him, and she's kissing him back like he's going to die tomorrow, and there's a single thought shining through the need clouding his mind and thundering through his blood.

_This is home._

And then she's sobbing again. The desolate sound breaks through the lust-induced haze and Remus's eyes open, and she's suddenly jerking away from him, hiccupping and breath hitching and hands once more over her face. Her shoulders are shaking with the force of her tears. Remus swallows hard and reaches for her, tentatively touching her shoulder. He's a little bit baffled.

In all the darkness and death, something amazing's just happened. Why is it making her cry?

"Hermione?"

Her hands fall at the sound of his voice, and her face is flushed spotchy, and she's _furious_.

"Damn you, Remus Lupin! Why now? Why did you have to do this _now_? Why couldn't you have done it months ago, _years_ ago, when it would've been real? Are you trying to break my heart more?"

Her anger blows through him, leaving him scrambling for purchase. Brow furrowing, his hand falls from her shoulder. "I don't understand. It is real."

"No! No, it's not!" Hermione cries, swiping at her cheeks and stepping back from him. "Not now! Peter and James and Lily, they've j-just... you just want comfort and I'm familiar! I'm the o-only one left! Of course you'll look for it from me!"

Her arms are wrapped around herself. Her chin lifts.

"Well, I'm not going to let it happen! I won't! I can't handle... I'm leaving! I'm leaving, Remus, for good! I was leaving before you got here, and you doing this isn't going to change my mind!"

She's shrill, and resolute, and looking at him with fierce eyes, and the floor drops out from under the werewolf. He stares at her while his heart begins to shrivel and dry, crumbling steadily in his chest.

"You're leaving," he finally whispers, and maybe his tone isn't what she's expecting, because he can physically see the anger drain from her at his words. She sighs and the distance between them could be worlds.

The gulf is wide and dark, and fucking _bottomless_ , and it's tearing him to pieces.

"I have to," she says in a voice that's a hollow echo of the Hermione of the past. "I don't have a choice."

"There's always a choice," he murmurs, repeating her words back at her, just as she did with him. She presses her lips together and shakes her head. She's focusing on the floor and her body's scrunched up like a pretzel.

"N-not this time. I have to... I have to go. I have to. I can't... I have to go."

She won't look at him. Remus's hands spasm at his sides, then ball. His chest is a knot. He's handed her his heart and she's thrown it back at him.

She doesn't want him.

"So go," he says, and her head snaps up, and her eyes are round and wet, and a sob explodes from her chest, and then with a twist on the spot and a _crack_ she's gone, leaving a hint of thorny marigold in her wake.

He stares blankly at the empty air she leaves behind, and it's a very long time before he can make himself move.

~0~

Time ceases to have meaning again. Remus moves through his life on autopilot. He's alone, more alone than he's ever been, ever thought he'd be, and that's just how it is. He readily accepts Dumbledore's assurances that Harry's safe and cared for, a little voice in the back of his mind whispering that maybe he's accepting it too readily, and hurt, anger and stubborn pride prevent him from searching for Hermione. He's listless, it's easy to fall into the mind-set that both are better off without him, and weeks, then months, then years pass.

Nothing changes. He gets meaningless, low-paying job after meaningless, low-paying job, always having to drop them after a varying amount of torturous full moons, before he gets fired in the muggle world or they figure out what he is in the wizarding world. Somewhere along the way he hears of a newly-invented potion that helps alleviate the symptoms of lycanthropy, and he tries to dredge up enough enthusiasm to find the money for it, but in the end it's too hard. The Dark Lord is dead and gone, the people he's terrorized move on, and it feels like he's being left behind.

Always on the back foot, running, trying desperately to catch up. Then he's not. He no longer has the will to reach.

The first stirrings of interest in over a decade spark to life in his breast, when Dumbledore makes an offer while visiting him at his little ramshackle cottage in Yorkshire. He gawks at the old man, perplexed.

"You want me to teach? Why?"

Dumbledore smiles. "I thought you might enjoy it. You aren't doing much around here, are you?" He glances around the dreary-looking sitting room, then turns back to Remus with a benign expression. The younger wizard barely stops himself from squirming. He feels like he's been caught in a prank. "Besides," the headmaster continues, "with Sirius Black escaping Azkaban-"

" _What_?" Remus barks, sitting bolt upright. "He's escaped? That's impossible!"

"Nothing is impossible, Remus, my boy," Dumbledore says, peering over his half-moon glasses at the slightly panicked werewolf. "Didn't you know? It's been in all the papers."

"I don't get the papers. When did this happen?"

"Not too long ago. I thought you might like to be at the school to help keep an extra eye on Harry. Not that Mr Black will be getting anywhere near him, mind you, but having someone around who knows his every move might be beneficial."

"Yes, you're right," Remus agrees absently. His mind is spinning. If Sirius goes after Harry... "Of course I'll come. I'm guessing it'll be the same, er, precautions as last time?"

Dumbledore nods, looking pleased. "The Shack is yours as always, although I do believe that with wolfsbane, you won't need it. I'll arrange for Severus to start making it for you as soon as possible. Would you care to travel on the Express on September 1st? The ministry has set up certain defensive tactics that I don't much approve of. It would help to have someone on board who can handle a wand."

 _Severus? Severus Snape? Is he a professor now? Merlin help those children._ "If that's what you want, I'm fine with that. But, Professor, you don't need to go to the trouble of getting wolfsbane made for me. I can provide my own." _Somehow._

"I know you can, Remus," Dumbledore agrees, the deliberately _non_ -disagreeing look in his eyes saying something entirely different, "but why should you have to, when we have a perfectly capable Potions Master on staff? You must well remember that Mr Snape loves to brew."

Remus murmurs in assent, and relief's trickling through his chest. Wolfsbane. He's going to get it. He knows it won't take away the pain of the transformations, but just the thought of keeping his human mind...

It abruptly occurs to him how daft he's been for not finding a way, _any_ way, of getting a hold of it sooner.

"Thank you, sir."

"Think nothing of it. And you're a colleague now, my boy. Please, call me Albus."

Dumbledore leaves not long after, and a month later Remus is sitting on the Hogwarts Express long before any of the students arrive. Memories are playing on repeat in his head, making it hard to breathe, and he's nervous because he's never taught anyone except for tutoring Peter and he doesn't know if he'll be good at it or not, and he's even more nervous because it's the day of the full moon and it's the first time he's ever _wanted_ it to happen.

He's never placed so much hope in a potion before. What if the wolfsbane doesn't work?

Dragging in a breath that does nothing for his squeezed-tight lungs, he settles back and lets the pre-moon exhaustion take him, as much as it can with his bones humming painfully. The train fills and thankfully no one enters the carriage he's claimed – until the door slides to the side and he's hit smack in the face with earth.

Remus's eyes fly open and he's _sitting right there._ Across from him, talking to a redheaded boy who smells like pepper and plastic, and fuck if he doesn't look exactly like James. Same perpetually messy black hair, same facial structure, same build. He knows this already, he looked like James as an infant after all, but it's much more defined now. It robs Remus of the ability to do anything but gaze at him in shock, robs him of the ability to _think_ , and it isn't until the train hits a rough patch and the coat covering him slips further down that he's startled to his senses. He blinks and swallows around the rock in his throat, silently thankful neither boy has noticed he's awake.

Harry. James and Lily's son, who he hasn't seen since he was seven months old. It physically hurts to look at him, but he feels like something unravels inside him at the same time, as if he's been carrying around a ball of something's-missing, and now it's gone. Because he's here, in front of him, and he's safe, and why, why, _why_ has he never made himself an integral part of this boy's life?

He's a fucking coward. And it's going to stop.

The thought sinks into him. He's about to open his mouth to speak to Harry when the train lurches to a stop, and Remus soon finds out what the ministy's 'defensive tactics' are. The sucking cold and hollowness takes a moment to overcome when the Dementor comes to the door, but Harry's on the floor, his face lined with pain, and the werewolf struggles to his feet and raises his wand. He can only produce a shield, but it does what it's supposed to do, and then he's on his knees next to Harry and reviving the boy, and it rips at his middle to see bright green eyes staring up at him. He shoves the past and the pain away and pulls the last of his affliction-battling chocolate from his robes.

"Eat it all," he says, helping the boy sit up and getting to his feet. He needs to see if anyone else has experienced such adverse effects. "You'll feel better, I promise."

Harry nods and takes a bite, and Remus smiles warmly and turns to the door. He opens it just as someone else does and the young girl runs right into him. It's only his hands that prevent her from falling, and as he sets her on her feet, daffodils and darjeeling tea assault his senses and capture his attention.

He takes her in in one fell swoop. What he sees stops his breath.

Bushy, dark brown hair. A delicate face. Too-large front teeth, and eyes that should be, _should be_ , chocolate brown, but aren't. They aren't.

Because those are Sirius's slate-grey eyes.

_She has Sirius's eyes._

"Merlin, I'm sorry, sir, I didn't see you! Are you a professor? You are, aren't you? I'm Ella Granger and this is my first year. I can't wait to start! What do you teach? You'll be teaching me, won't you? Oh, is Harry Potter in here? Harry! What are you doing on the ground? Excuse me, Professor."

Her head cocks when she wants to know something, and she grins when she's done and moves around him, and Remus's heart, that time and distance has somehow managed to painstakingly piece back together, busts through the builders' tape holding the thick cracks aligned and tumbles in large chunks onto the Express's wooden panel floor.


	6. Like a Stranger

Remus Lupin loves Hermione Granger.

The full moon passes with a reinforced silencing charm, breaking and reforming bones, and then a human mind within a werewolf body, in his personal quarters at Hogwarts. Remus angles his head down to look at his form, briefly distracted from his churning thoughts by the horror and wonder of seeing his other half and understanding it as a human for the first time. He gets up from where he's collapsed on the floor and circles slowly once, then twice, pausing when the thought that he's chasing his tail much like he's seen Padfoot do many time in the past flits through his head.

Padfoot. Ella. Hermione.

All of a sudden he feels old, and tired. Confused. His chest aches and so many questions spin continuously, on replay, through his head; questions that after their breakup in school, he thought he'd never have to ask, let alone wonder about in the first place. A whine escapes, and his ears go back, and he finds himself padding to and fro, his nails clinking on the stone floor.

Both distinctly canine sounds startle him enough to stop his pacing, but they don't stop the jumble of thoughts and feelings. Remus sighs, which comes out as a huffy burst of air, and he settles down with his back legs folded up, his tail curled and his head on his paws. Closing his eyes, he lies and waits for the moon to sink. It seems to take an abnormally long time.

In the morning, after the howls have turned to screams, and then whimpers and groans, and he's naked and trembling in a ball on the floor but human again, he drags himself to his feet and stumbles his way over to the pile of clothes folded in a neat pile on the bed.

He needs to speak to Dumbledore.

~0~

"Remus," the headmaster says, tone sprinkled with surprise when the new professor steps through the floo and into his office. It's early, just after sunrise, but the old wizard is dressed and sitting behind his desk, a floating quill pausing and hovering over a stack of parchment when he looks over at the flare of green fire. "To what do I owe this unexpected visit? You should be in bed recovering. How did you're first moon on wolfsbane go?"

Remus stops at the hearth, not venturing any further. His muscles are vibrating with the leftover strain of the transformation, and he knows if he doesn't find a soft surface soon, his body won't care if the surface is soft at all. But he needs to get this out.

He needs to know.

"Ella Granger," he croaks, and the ever-present twinkle dims somewhat in faded blue eyes. He sends Remus a gentle smile.

"Ah, yes, young Miss Elizabeth-"

"Elizabeth?"

"Elizabeth is her given name; Ella is a nickname. I believe the youngster finds it too old fashioned and stuffy for her tastes."

Remus stares at the man. There's a hot, molten feeling beginning to stir in his belly, lifting its head and yawning to show sharply pointed teeth. His hands clench at his sides. "How do you know this?"

"Hermione told me, my boy," Dumbledore says, and the feeling gets to its feet and growls, rumbling low, almost audible. The headmaster's eyes sharpen. "I've kept in contact with her over the years, as I do with all of the surviving Order members. I assumed you were doing the same."

Not many people have the ability to hide a reprimand and make it stunningly clear at the same time. The hotness inside Remus shrinks back at Dumbledore's words, and a slick, oily guilt bubbles up and spreads through his gut, making it burn for another reason. He grits his teeth against the feeling and straightens his spine. He's not a child and he doesn't appreciate being spoken to like one.

"Where is she?" he asks through those gritted teeth. It's a moment before the headmaster answers.

"She's staying in Hogsmeade for the time being," Dumbledore replies calmly, hands laced together on the desk in front of him. The quill is still hovering next to his elbow. "I suggest you get some sleep before you go see her, Remus."

"I no longer have to heed your suggestions, Albus," Remus answers with more than a little bite in his voice, and the old man's brows wing. The werewolf turns back to the floo, and a second later he's back in his quarters and heading for the door. It's still early enough that breakfast hasn't begun, so he makes his way through an empty school until he gets to the one-eyed witch statue by his new classroom. A tap of his wand and a whisper of " _dissendium_ " opens the passageway, and then he's loping through the tunnel, climbing up into and sneaking out of a closed Honeyduke's with practised ease.

Dumbledore didn't mention where Hermione's staying, but he figures that if she's only _staying,_ then she'd be at the Three Broomsticks. He heads towards the inn.

"Remus Lupin, as I live and breathe," Rosmerta exclaims with a surprised smile when she answers his frantic knocking. "What are you doing here? It's bloody early, son. You can't be up for a pint at this time of the morning."

"No, Rosmerta, I actually think he's here to see me."

Marigold drifts through the doorway and winds its way through Remus's head, making his breath stop. Slowly, he turns, and seeing her for the first time in twelve years is a solid, desperately painful punch in the gut.

She hasn't changed. Sitting at a table with a steaming mug of tea in front of her, her bushy curls long and wild, falling down her back, she's still as beautiful as the day she left. The signs of passing years are there, around her eyes and in her barely fuller figure, but all they do is add grace and charm, and fuck if they don't make her all the more alluring. Her lips are pink and parted, and her eyes are wide and locked on him, and Remus physically _aches_ to go over and pull her into his arms. Where she belongs.

But he can't. She isn't his. He isn't even sure if there's friendship between them anymore.

"Are you?" she asks, voice soft, and Remus blinks back to reality. He nods mutely, tongue-tied. Hermione sucks her bottom lip between her teeth and nods herself. He can see the tension in her shoulders.

"All right, come on then," she says and gets up, leaving her tea where it is. Her voice is still no louder than a murmur, and as Remus hesitates and then follows, one careful step in front of the other, he takes in the way her fingers are plucking at the bottom of the loose shirt she's wearing over grey cotton tights. Her socked feet don't make a sound as she ascends the stairs, and when she stops at a closed door, her hand on the knob, he just catches the heavy breath that shudders out of her.

It shouldn't please so much him that she's nervous. But it does.

Hermione settles on one of the twin single beds once they enter the small, sparse room. Remus stops in the doorway, his eyes flicking from Hermione, to the bed she's sitting on in quick succession, and then he walks over to the tiny desk opposite the door and pulls out the chair. He turns it to face her and lowers himself, spine firmly against the back of the chair and hands resting tensely on his knees.

His head spins the instant he sits down, the blood rushing from it rapidly, making him see spots. He sucks in a slow, steady breath and blinks a couple of times, trying to discreetly clear his vision.

Bloody hell. He really should've taken some recuperation time, like Dumbledore suggested.

"You look good."

Her sudden statement distracts him. He swallows and forces himself to meet her eyes, the spots gradually fading. "I look old and grey," he corrects dryly. Hermione smiles and shakes her head.

"Not too much. Just around the edges." Her hand drifts towards him, stops mid-movement, then veers off to push her hair back behind her ear. A little colour tints her cheeks and her eyes dart to the wall behind him. "I, um, I think it makes you look distinguished."

Remus snorts quietly and then just looks at her, not able to do anything else. She's large as life. He's uncomfortable, and curious, and more eager than he's willing to admit, because he doesn't know her anymore. He doesn't know what to make of this Hermione; this woman who hasn't been in his life for over a decade, and who's had a child he didn't even know she was pregnant with. The thought makes him frown, and he opens his mouth, then closes it, frown deepening. Words and sentences have left the building.

The silence drenches the room. Then, Hermione sighs and her eyes move back to his. She looks very tired. "What are you doing in Hogsmeade, Remus?"

And as if the question had unlocked the padlock on his tongue, Remus speaks.

"I'm the new Hogwarts Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor."

"You are?" Hermione blinks, and a smile slowly spreads across her face. "Why, that's perfect for you! Congratulations! Did Dumbledore tell you I was here? I don't live here normally, but with…"

Her voice trails off and her eyes go wide. Remus watches the colour drain from her face, and he keeps on speaking, the words running together.

"Dumbledore wanted me to take the train with the students, and I ended up running into a young girl while I was on it, a pretty little thing. Reminded me a lot of someone I grew up with. She did have one startling difference though."

"Her eyes," Hermione mutters, and Remus nods when the river of words dry up, studying her closely. She sinks her teeth into her lower lip and shifts on the bed, once again playing with the bottom of her shirt. Her gaze drops.

The silence is worse than before, so absolute it's as if the room is empty. Remus clenches his jaw. He needs to keep this going if he's going to get what he came here for.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Hermione's breath leaves her in a noisy rush. "I didn't have time to before, Remus, and then I couldn't bring myself to seek you out afterwards-"

"No, not that," Remus cuts in, waving a hand. "I know that. I mean, why didn't you tell me you were back together with Sirius?"

_Is that the reason why you didn't want me?_

The witch's head flies up. "I wasn't!" she bursts out, eyes once again wide. "We aren't… we weren't… it was just one night! Marlene had just died and she and Sirius were… well, I don't know exactly _what_ they were, but they were something. He was angry and hurting, and was drinking to hide that, and I was feeling… we got drunk. We were _drunk_. It wouldn't have happened otherwise. We just… I guess we both just needed comfort in the familiar. We never talked about it afterward; hell, he wasn't even there when I woke up, but it went unspoken between us that it was just a one-off."

"Oh."

The rug's been pulled out from under him for the second time. In all the fretting and brooding he's done during the night, the thought of a one-night stand hadn't ever entered his head. He doesn't… he doesn't know how he feels about it.

He doesn't know how he feels, period.

"All right," he murmurs, pushing his confusion aside, "so, um, does Sirius…?"

The question riles up a hurricane.

"No!" Hermione nearly shouts, jerking to feet. "And he's not going to either! Why do you think I'm here? It's bad enough that he might be going after Harry! He doesn't deserve to know her, not after Lily and James!"

She stomps towards the other bed and then spins around, and Remus's heart begins to race. Her eyes are wet, and furiously hot, and so goddamn beautiful that they take his breath away.

It still utterly baffles him how he could miss seeing something so important for so many years. It probably always will.

"That fucking bastard all but killed them with his own hands, and you think I'd let me anywhere near _my_ daughter? He can go straight to hell! I'll put him there myself if he even thinks of laying a single _finger_ on Ella!"

"I agree," Remus says quietly, and the words take the wind out of his companions sails rather swiftly. She sags, then sniffs and brushes at her eyes.

"You do?"

"'Course I do. He's a traitor who had us all fooled, and who's actions got two of the people I love murdered. I'm behind you every step of the way in that regard."

Hermione sends him a small, weak smile and then settles back down on the bed. She sighs and pushes her hair back. "Not to mention the way he got everyone to focus on _you_ being the spy," she mutters, pulling her sleeves over the heel of her hands and then folding her fingers together, shoulders curved. "It's obvious how convenient that is now. Although you didn't do anything to make that impossible, did you?"

She turns her head in his direction, brow lifted and a smirk playing at her mouth, and Remus is walloped over the head with countless memories. His heart jerks in his chest, kerthumping solidly out of rhythm, and a flush rushes up his neck and into his face. His breath hisses out through his teeth, catching and making him cough, and the flush grows. Bloody hell, he sounds like a tea kettle.

"I _was_ a spy, just not the type you were thinking," he says after clearing his throat. Hermione grins and Remus has to look away.

"You're not upset? That we thought you'd betray… that we thought it was you?"

The question warrants some thought. Is he? It doesn't take long for him to figure out he isn't. It's natural, isn't it? Instinct on their part. He's a werewolf, a dark creature; of course his friends should think the worse of him. Even knowing as he's thinking those types of thoughts that they're wrong, it still doesn't make them right in any sense of the word.

He won't mention this to Hermione, however. He can just imagine her reaction if he did.

"You can't have been far along," he comments instead of answering the question. Hermione frowns but goes with it.

"Just over a month. I found out two days before- I was still getting my head around it, I wasn't even thinking about telling anyone else."

There's an entire world in the void left by her hanging sentence. The large, bulbous elephant in the room that they've both successfully ignored so far, trumpets loudly, stamping its feet. Remus's chest is _tight_ , and he stares at her, nervously licking his lips. They wait.

Dear Merlin, he wants her to bring it up. To give him hope. If she only left because she was pregnant with Sirius Black's child…

Is there still a sliver of a chance?

The seconds are eons, and then she breaks her almost painful immobility by shifting her body less than a centimetre away from him and dropping her eyes to the floor. "S-so you've seen Harry then?"

The sliver curls up on itself, a leaf blackening in a wildfire, disintegrating before his eyes. He doesn't move for a moment, and when he does, it's only to slowly nod his head. He can't move any faster.

"Yeah, on the train," he says, in such a low voice he's surprised she can still hear him. But he can't speak any louder either. He needs to be quiet; be careful. Any sudden movement will let loose that wildfire, and he's not ready to be consumed. "There were Dementors searching the compartments-"

"Excuse me?" Hermione barks, head snapping back towards him. "What the fuck were _Dementors_ doing on the Hogwarts Express?"

"Looking for Black," Remus replies in a flat voice, focusing on her shoulder. "Albus wanted me to travel that way because of it. I claimed a compartment before any of the students arrived, and Harry and another boy somehow managed to pick the very one I was in. Harry, er, didn't react well to the search."

"Is he okay?" the witch demands, half-rising to her feet again, as if she's going to storm the castle, "is Ella? Why the hell would they think Sirius would travel on a packed school train?"

"Ella wasn't in the compartment so I don't know how she initially reacted, but she seemed perfectly fine when I ran into her – or should I say, she ran into me. Harry's another story. He's better now, don't worry," Remus says hurriedly, looking at her face when she takes a step towards the door. "I made sure of it."

Hermione shoulders fall in relief and a smile lights her eyes. "Of course you did," she sighs, and Remus swallows heavily, finding the bed exceedingly interesting this time. There's a buzzing running through his blood; the wildfire. He needs to leave soon, before it causes him to do or say something he'll later regret.

He badly wants to shout at her, to demand answers he has no right to demand. The buzzing encourages him. It makes his head feel floaty. Pressing his lips together, he nails his attention on a fact that she's all but confirmed without saying the words.

"You know Harry. Personally."

Hermione's head tilts. She looks at him, and there's a significant space between her looking and her talking. "I do," she agrees finally. Remus can't read her eyes. "Pure coincidence, of course. Ella and I moved back to England when she was three, and we found a perfect little house on Wisteria Walk in Little Whinging. Quite convenient actually. A fixer-upper that came cheap not only because it needed a bit of work, but because it was right next door to a 'crazy cat lady', as the real estate agent called her. Lovely woman, despite the whiffy odour. It wasn't until I saw Harry scuffing around in her backyard that I found out she babysits him quite often."

Her voice is conversational, the delivery is flawless, and it's the biggest lie he's heard her tell so far. She's gotten a lot better at lying over the years, he can tell. It makes him wonder why she feels she needs to come up with the cover story.

Did she try and _take_ Harry once she'd come home from wherever she was? (Where was she?) Harry doesn't have a godmother; an archaic law crafted by purebloods demands that if a magical child is to have a full set of godparents, they need to be married. So although James wasn't a traditional pureblood – he'd married a muggleborn, for Merlin's sake – they'd still had to choose between one godfather or one godmother for the ministry to recognize the status. Sirius had come up trumps, for reasons Remus isn't wholly sure of.

If she _had_ tried to stake a claim on the Boy-Who-Lived, it makes sense that she'd been denied. She isn't Harry's blood or his rightful legal guardian. She would've understood being turned down, surely. But that doesn't explain the cover story, or what Remus can sense underlying it, poking through those nonexistent holes. He doesn't at all like the implication that she'd deliberately found a way to stay in Harry's life because he's needed her to.

Just what has Harry's life been like, living with his aunt and uncle?

The buzzing swarms him. There's bees in his blood, a great wave of them, the guilt on their wings suffocating. He's spent the last twelve years being a useless waste of space while Harry… while Harry…

Lily would be so disappointed.

He feels sick. Gasping and pushing to his feet, his heart slams, and the buzzing turns high-pitched and whiny, making his ears whoosh. His head is drowning. The world blurs.

"Remus? _Remus!_ "

The floor comes up to meet him, and then his body slams into nothing, a diagonal plank in mid-air. Her hands are cupping his face.

"For God's sake, Remus, you know what last night was! Did you come straight here after the sun rose? You're a right fool, aren't you?"

He's floating, gently. Then he's pressing against a soft mattress and marigold flows along his skin, and he sighs. Giving in, he has just enough energy left to bury his face into the thickly-scented pillow before the black edging his vision gathers into a solid mass and he sinks gratefully into unconsciousness.

He doesn't even have the chance to sink deep before he's dreaming about a familiar hand running softly through his hair, and lips ghosting, lingering, across his cheek.


	7. Like a Comrade

Remus Lupin loves Hermione Granger.

He wakes with his nose still buried in marigold-scented material. The room is dark and empty; has been empty for some time by the feel of the air. Remus blinks into the pillow and then lifts his head, pressing his hands firmly into the mattress when it spins sickly, slowly, in one wide swoop before settling back where it should be. He swallows and his breath hisses out between his teeth, the blankets falling down to his waist as his arms lock in place

"You're awake."

Maybe it's because he's concentrating on his gradually calming stomach. Or maybe it's that he's slept with the marigold for so many hours that he can no longer tell the difference between old and fresh. Whatever it is, Remus doesn't hear the door open, let alone notice her scent. Her voice startles him so much that he jumps like a frightened rabbit and whips around with a high-pitched yelp.

Hermione's eyes are wide with surprise and just a touch of glee, something he hasn't seen in her gaze for longer than the years they've been apart. "Did I just manage to sneak up on you?"

"I… don't know. Possibly?" Remus returns. His voice is rough and he coughs to clear his throat, grimacing against the still seedy feeling crawling through his gut. It feels a lot like he's been on a three-day bender – or maybe a single evening of drinking himself daft after walking in on Sirius and the witch at the door having sex. The thought makes him feel worse and he eases himself back down with a groan, head pounding. At least the room isn't spinning anymore. A shadow falls over him and Remus finds himself squinting up at a familiar bushy mane.

Disapproval and concern war in Hermione's expression. "Why would you let the after-effects get so bad that they affect your senses? That's not safe at all, Remus."

"They don't usually affect my senses, do they?" the werewolf grumbles and closes his eyes. As with Dumbledore, the reprimand makes him feel like a young child who's done something wrong. It's uncomfortable and awkward, like much of his current relationship with his once best friend, the picture sliced through and slotted back together off kilter. So very off kilter. "I imagine it's probably a side-effect of the wolfsbane."

"You imagine? Shouldn't you know?"

One eye blinks open. "Not when it's the first time I've ever taken the potion," he says, and shock makes Hermione's face slacken before censure twists it into a glare. Her hands plant themselves on her hips.

"The first time you've taken it?" she snaps, staring daggers at him. "What do you mean it's the first time you've taken it? That potion's been available for years!"

"Yes, well, I'm not exactly rolling in dosh, am I? I couldn't afford the ruddy stuff," Remus retorts sharply, annoyed because he feels like shite and her ranting is familiar; painfully familiar. He almost wishes she'd go back to the quiet scolding from before. That didn't bring back memories that tightened his lungs in a brutal fashion.

"You're registered, Remus! You know the ministry helps with the cost if you need it!"

"I don't need the fucking _ministry's_ help! The moment I hand myself over to them I'll end up as some fucked-up science experiment! They yank enough of us around by the bollocks as it is, they're not getting their hands on me!"

His growl echoes through the room. Hermione blinks and takes a step back, and Remus sighs deeply, remorse adding to the exhaustion deadening his limbs. He's gotten angry before, obviously, but he's never shown it so vocally. Remus broods, he doesn't explode.

He's tired. He's just so tired, even after sleeping for Merlin knows how long, and he feels utterly wretched. He needs to get back to the school and start watching over Harry; start making up for significant past wrongs.

He needs to get away from Hermione until he can get his head and heart properly sorted.

"How long was I out?" he asks as he rubs at his temple and drags himself upright with a soft groan. He's not in any physical pain apart from the relentless headache, but his body's telling him he's hungover with zero alcohol in sight. He hates it.

"A bit under 24 hours."

Remus's head snaps around. "Really?" Hermione nods and he frowns, wondering if that's the wolfsbane as well. He's collapsed due to not resting after a moon before, but his record's closer to 12 hours. It's a little worrying. Is that going to happen every month?

How long will he be down if he listens to his body and sleeps the day after the transformation? It varies when he's not on the potion, depending on how badly hurt he is, but it's usually no more than a day because he can't stand to lay around for too long, wounds be damned. Thankfully none of his classes start until the following week, but he can't cancel class for two days every month!

He needs to speak to Dumbledore again. The realization makes him wince, and he carefully rises from the bed, Hermione stepping back further. Her eyes are locked on him.

"I have to go. Thank you for… for answering my questions and then taking care- giving me a place to sleep. I'll be in touch."

He walks towards the door and her voice stops him just as he's opening it.

"Will you?"

He can't decipher the tone in her voice. Her eyes are shuttered.

"Yes," he says, and Hermione turns away. Her back's very straight.

"I'll keep an eye out for the owl."

Not knowing how to interpret that, something that seems to be becoming a pattern, he stares at her back for a moment and then turns to the door.

"Don't neglect yourself again, Remus."

It's an order. He pauses and flicks a look back over his shoulder, but she's making the bed and not looking at him.

"I won't." And then he's descending the stairs and making his way through the still-empty pub, apparating to the school's entrance as soon as he steps into the street.

~0~

Ella Granger is a friendly, outgoing girl. Remus's eyes are drawn towards both her and Harry the morning before his first class, and it quickly becomes clear that Lily and James's son and the young first-year witch are close. It makes sense that they would be, growing up only a street or so apart and Ella living next to the woman who babysits Harry, but to Remus's surprise, the third-year wizard doesn't act like the younger girl is an annoyance of any kind. He's welcoming, all smiles, when Ella plops herself down next to him and the redheaded boy Remus learns is called Ron Weasley at the Gryffindor table.

The same can't be said for Ron. The young wizard scowls at her the moment she appears, and Remus's eyes narrow when his facial expressions suggest that he's saying something not particularly flattering. Harry frowns at Ron, but they're sitting right at the end of the table near the doors and the room is loud, so despite his enhanced senses Remus can't hear what they're saying without concentrating, which feels too intrusive. He watches instead, and his brows meet his hairline, a slow smile growing, when a blatantly sly smirk creeps across Ella's face.

She leans forward and says something back to Ron, and his face turns the colour of his hair, expression thunderous as Harry snorts into his porridge. The young girl throws him a smug look, then says something to Harry, gets up and leaves the Hall.

It's as she's leaving that Remus notices her tie is striped green and silver. The pumpkin juice he just taken a drink of sprays from his mouth onto the table in front of him, his chest seized with a rack of coughing. He gasps when a very large hand thumps him on the back, almost sprawling him across the table.

"All right there, Remus?"

"Fine, Hagrid," he rasps, picking himself back up and smiling wanly at the half-giant, "just went down the wrong way. Thank you."

"Glad t'help. Looking forward to yer first day?

"Quite," Remus murmurs, speculative gaze on the door. Ella's in Slytherin? That's… not what he's expecting. He knows the hat considered putting her mother in Ravenclaw, but Hermione hadn't ever mentioned Slytherin. As for Sirius…

He shuts that line of thinking down quickly, not wanting to think about his ex-best mate, and quickly finishes his breakfast. He shouldn't be assuming anyway. Just because two people from the same house procreate, doesn't mean their offspring will follow the trend.

_Remus, you're not going to follow those two prats' poor example, are you? There's nothing wrong with Slytherin! Slytherin House emphasizes and exploits certain aspects of the person's character, just as Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff do! It's the person, not the house! Don't judge and alienate an entire group of people just because of the house they were sorted into during school! Make your own decisions after you've met and gotten to know those people!_

Lily's rant in third year isn't more than a tiresome rant at the time, one James and Sirius had scoffed at, but age is supposed to bring wisdom, and Remus knows now she's right. He's not going to assume the worst just because Hermione's daughter is Slytherin instead of Gryffindor.

A smile tugs at his lips and he turns back to Hagrid, listening as the Care of Magical Creatures professor rambles on. He's actually looking forward to meeting her.

He gets his chance that very day. Gryffindor third-years don't have a DADA lesson until later on in the week, but Slytherin first-years are his second class, right behind his NEWTs students. They share with Gryffindor, something Remus personally requests. He wants everyone on equal footing and what better way than to start right at the beginning with the deepest rivalry?

He's nervous again, even more so when a head of bushy hair that's darker than he originally thought takes a seat at the back of the class. Ella's eyes are bright. Her grin is brighter. Remus swallows his trepidation at teaching not only her but all these young ones (what if he does something wrong and buggers them up for life?), introduces himself and starts the lesson.

By the end of the hour he feels much better. There's the expected one-upmanship, learnt from family, friends and older house members, but most of the students are quite happily applying themselves to learning and executing the wand lighting and extinguishing charms.

"Practise _Lumos_ and _Nox_ as much as possible and have a five-inch essay on the reason why a light in the darkness is one of the best defences ready for our next class. Off you go then," he says as the students scramble to their feet. His eyes linger briefly on Ella, who's chatting excitedly to the girl next to her. He hasn't asked many questions during the class, knowing from experience that only a small number of students would've looked at, let alone read their textbooks before their first lesson, but her hand had been in the air for the ones he had asked.

Not as eager or as arrogant as Hermione. She answers correctly then doesn't radiate smugness. Rather, she'd seems simply pleased with herself. The only problem he has with her is that she just doesn't stop talking.

No filter. She speaks every thought. It could be a good or a bad thing; Remus won't know which until he gets to know her better.

"Professor Lupin?"

Speak of the devil. Daffodils and darjeeling tea floats across, and Remus stops shuffling parchment on his desk, turning to find the classroom has emptied out but for Ella. She's looking right at him, and it's startling and very disconcerting to see Sirius's eyes looking at him from this young girl's face. His heart slams once against his ribcage.

"Can I help you, Miss Granger?"

He winces in his head. Compared to during class, he sounds much too formal. Ella's forehead crinkles and then smooths out into a benign expression.

"What house were you in in school?"

Well, he isn't expecting that. Remus frowns. "Gryffindor. Why do you ask?"

"Just trying to sort out all this specific house traits hogwash," Ella explains, smiling politely. "Did you interact much with the other houses outside the classroom? I just want to know if it's worth my while looking for likeminded abroad."

"Not really," Remus answers slowly, eyeing her. Ella's demeanour shouts guilelessness. "We mainly stuck with our housemates. I don't think that's changed in the years since, although I do believe it's a good idea to expand one's horizons."

The young witch purses her lips in thought and opens her mouth. Outside the open window an owl hoots. Ella's brows draw down.

"All right, thank you, professor, I didn't mean to bother you," she says on a sigh, looking disgruntled. "I appreciate the advice. I didn't want to get a biased opinion so going to a prefect was out, and all the other teachers here are either old and stuck in their ways, or plain unapproachable. I'm glad I found someone willing to pander to my whims."

"You're very welcome," Remus replies, and Ella smiles, nods and heads for the classroom door. He lets her almost reach it.

"Miss Granger?"

She stops and looks back at him questionably.

"Learn not to lay it on so thick. A lie is always more believable when kept simple."

Surprise flickers through Ella's eyes and then the smirk he saw at breakfast appears. It looks much more natural than the squeaky-clean persona from moments before. "I'll do that."

Remus's stares at the empty doorway for some time after she's gone, mind turning over. Then, with a shake of his head, he starts getting ready for his next class. Unless it impacts on other students, what she's up to isn't really his business, is it?

~0~

Meeting Harry is a mess. He's harder to be around than Ella is, this infant turned boy he practically abandoned, and Remus doesn't know how to be around him. He doesn't know whether to act like a teacher and treat him like any other student, a replacement father (fuck, never that!), or just be a friend. It's confusing and distressing, and Remus finds himself contradicting the decision he made on the train and avoiding the boy until he hasn't got a choice.

He ignores the displeasure he imagines on Lily's face, the condemnation on James's, and the very real ire he'd see on Hermione's if she knew. He doesn't get in contact to tell her.

But being a teacher does help solve the issue, and in the classroom it's natural to act like Harry's just another young wizard he needs to give knowledge to. He doesn't focus on him and the class goes well – until the boy he's choosing to treat no different leaves the class with a disappointed look on his face.

That look doesn't sit right with Remus, and it isn't until the first Hogsmeade trip at Hallowe'en that he's able to sort the reason behind it. Harry asks to speak to him and the werewolf can't say no, despite feeling the full moon coming that night in his bones.

Not on that date.

"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named showing up in a classroom full of students would not be a good thing," he says when Harry explains, the green-eyed boy sitting in his office and drinking strong tea. Black with three sugars. The exact way Peter takes it.

Used to take it.

Remus sighs silently and wonders if he _will_ get a chance to confront Sirius. He doesn't know how he'll react if he does. He knows he told Hermione he'd be behind her every step of the way, and he's angry, he's very angry, but the betrayal's worse, and he doesn't really want to see Sirius at all because of it. Will seeing him be debilitating or give the anger the jolt it needs?

The thought slides away and he concentrates back on Harry when the boy mentions Dementors, ending up being impressed by the boy. Harry's an intelligent lad, down to earth and shockingly humble. From one conversation, stilted though it may be, it's clear he isn't at all like James. He isn't really like Lily either, although there's more of his mother in him than his father.

Harry Potter's his own person. It makes it easier to deal with him, and by the time the conversation's interrupted by the arrival of Severus with his last batch of wolfsbane, Remus feels much more at ease. He can tell that Harry does too.

The young wizard leaves shortly after, and after a bit of a pissing match with Snape, who hasn't changed at _all_ in the years since their time at school, Remus drinks the potion and settles down in his office. The moon passes as it always does – with one exception. There's a lot more traffic prowling outside his warded door than there usually is.

"Black tried to get into the Gryffindor common room last night," Minerva tells him grimly the next evening when Remus questions her as she's checking on him, knocking the wind from the werewolf's sails. The flutter of an owl's wings outside the window is loud in the weighty silence that follows her statement. "Shredded the Fat Lady's portrait when she wouldn't let him in. We've got teachers and older students trailing Harry as extra protection, but if you could…?"

"Of course," Remus murmurs, and when Minerva nods approvingly and leaves, his legs give out and he slides down the wall to crumple on the floor, head in his hands and lungs devoid of air.

Sirius would have known. He would've known that the night before was a full moon and Remus would've been tied up, so to speak. He chose right then to go after Harry _because_ he knew Remus wouldn't be around. He had to know Remus was at the school. His animagus senses are extremely good, he can't _not_ know.

It feels like… it feels like… sweet Merlin, his being here isn't _aiding_ Sirius somehow, is it? Maybe Harry knows Remus knew his parents in school, that they were friends. What if Harry thinks…?

The floo flares to life and Remus doesn't move until a hand lifts his chin. Brown eyes meet his and the air Remus thought wasn't anywhere near his lungs streams from them in a choked rush.

"Stop blaming yourself. What Sirius did is on him and _only_ on him. Harry's fine now, and he was fine all those years ago as well. You haven't let anyone down."

"I let Harry down," Remus whispers, and Hermione sighs heavily and sits back against the wall next to him, staring into the empty office. It's a moment or two before she speaks again.

"All right, yes, so you did," she says. Remus's head whips towards her, jaw unhinged, and Hermione's brow arches, a pointed look in her eyes. "What? You're the one who's so stuck on believing it. You didn't think I'd figure that out? My opinion at the moment doesn't matter, because I'm not going to convince you otherwise. So, yeah, since you won't see it any other way, let's go with you did abandon him. What are you going to do about it now?"

"I… I don't… what can I do about it now?"

"Well, you can stop moping about it for a start off," Hermione replies bluntly, turning back to survey the room. "Harry has no one but the Weasleys and us, Remus. Sure, he's got Dumbledore and the whole bloody wizarding world behind him, but we're the ones that matter. We're the one who care about _him_ , not what he can do for us. Wallowing in the past isn't protecting Harry now, or giving him the family he deserves to have. Forget about what you did when you were young and stupid and focus on _now._ All right?"

There's no owls now to break the silence. Remus stares at Hermione, who has her arms folded across her midriff and seems to be finding his office exceedingly interesting. Her words make sense, really, but he doesn't know if he can heed them.

Forget about the past? That's a lot easier said than done. So much happened back then, and he doesn't know if she means his non-interactions with Harry after James and Lily died, the guilt he feels about not seeing Sirius for who he really is, or his feelings for her and the kiss that she fled from.

Perhaps all three? She's still not looking at him. But her words _do_ make sense, and he can at least try, can't he?

"All right," he says softly, and Hermione's shoulders gradually sink before she smiles. She pats his arm and gets to her feet.

"Good. I should go. Why isn't your floo locked, by the way? You're a Defence professor and you leave it open for all and sundry to clamber through?"

She's scolding him again. This time it makes him grins, and Hermione smirks back, looking remarkably like her daughter. "I'll lock it when you leave, mum."

The smirk fades and Hermione scowls before she's suddenly smiling once more, politely and with little warmth. Remus wonders what he said to cause such a drastic change.

"I really do have to go. I want to check on Ella and Harry before nightfall. I still haven't seen any owls, Remus."

Her eyes flicker, companionship from times past there then gone, and then she's activating the floo and he's alone. Remus stays where he is on the floor, not as morose, but confused and a little frustrated, because she's frustrating. The whole situation's fucking frustrating. He sighs and spends the rest of the night grading papers, eyes continuously falling on the window that he doesn't want to close, searching the darkness for an old friend, black in shape and in name.

He curses the weakness that's preventing him from physically going to look for the traitor himself. For the first time in years he wishes he had still had the map.

He's no longer conflicted over how to deal with Sirius.

~0~

Remus is watching Harry play Quidditch in the pouring rain when he catches the scent of spice, leather and coal dust, low under the roaring blanket of noise and sweat and wet. The swarm of Dememtors invading the pitch obliterates the scent, but it was there, and Remus is too busy searching frantically for the source to realize something's wrong with the Gryffindor Seeker. People screaming catches his attention, and he sees a ragdoll falling from the sky.

His heart stops.

Suddenly the ragdoll slows and Dumbledore stows his wand as Harry gently touches the ground, still far too hard for Remus's liking. Sirius is forgotten and Remus lurks around the Hospital Wing entrance, not quite brave enough to go in. Harry _doesn't_ know about his relationship with his parents, he's worked that out, so why would a simple teacher show so much concern? His gut still twists whenever he looks at Harry, and he's decided that not getting close to the young Gryffindor is the best thing to do, having figured he can protect him without burdening the boy by involving himself in his personal life.

Deep down, he's terrified of Harry not _wanting_ him involved in his personal life.

"He's fine, he didn't get hurt. The Dementors made him pass out again."

Ella smiles serenely then heads down the corridor, the Hospital Wings doors swinging shut in her wake. Remus frowns after her. He knows he shouldn't be surprised that the Dementors affect Harry that much, they're his Boggart after all, but for some reason he is. The logical reason behind it makes him ill, and when Harry comes to him later and asks him to teach him the spell to repel a Dementor, he knows he's more willing than he should be. But Harry's looking at him with Lily's eyes and he looks so much like James, not to mention it'll help him and he really does _like_ the boy…

How can he say no?

Months pass with no sign of Sirius and lesson after lesson with Harry. Remus writes Hermione, just like he's promised, but the letter are more factual reports than anything else. He's never been good at making more than one thing important at a time, and at the moment (and beyond the moment), Harry's the most important thing. Ella hangs around, a fat, ginger cat coming and going, but Remus's priority is Harry. So he watches, and he teaches, and he confiscates the broom-shaped present that arrives out of nowhere for Harry at Christmas, promising to get it back to him if and when it's proved jinx-free.

Harry grumbles but he can't argue with a professor.

With the lessons come the realization that Remus can't continue to see the boy as just a student. Not anymore. Not after he gets to know him, and after Harry finds out who he was to Lily and James and vice versa. Harry's clever and sensible, and he's determined, and his success with his patronus is spotty at best. But he does have success. When Remus asks him what his memory is, the answer almost brings him to his knees.

"I don't think it's a memory as such," Harry says, grinning and happy, chomping down on Remus-provided chocolate, the Boggart back in the chest for the time being. "More a feeling, I guess. It's of… it's of my mum and dad and me. Together. From when I was a baby. Do you think it's an actual memory?"

The werewolf clears his throat and resists pressing the heel of his hand to his aching heart. "I- I don't know, Harry. It could be. Your parents… your parents loved you very much. Even if it isn't a memory, it's still a fine example. Use whatever works, lad."

Harry's grin widens, and that grin grows even more when he uses the patronus charm outside of practise for the first time and it actually works. The Dementors aren't real, but their defence is. Harry soars from the sky, ecstatic, and Remus wants nothing more than to tug him off the returned broom and hug him hard.

He's never been more proud.

The pride vanishes in a surging wave of fury when Sirius goes after Harry for the second time the same night. The Fat Lady's replacement confirms he let the madman into the common room, and Remus stands and shakes, anger tinging his vision, before he turns away from the other professors and walks out of the school, wand in hand.

A thought of times long past and his patronus is in front of him, awaiting instruction.

"Black went after Harry again. I'm going after him. Are you joining me?"

The silvery wolf runs into the distance and Remus heads toward the forest. The others can search the school as much as they like, but he knows Black won't be found there. The trees grow densely packed, the light of the stars fading, and Remus is standing in the Forbidden Forest, in the pitch black, so angry he isn't thinking straight.

"BLACK!"

The forest swallows his shout. There's no birds to quieten at the unexpected noise, and Remus waits, eyes constantly moving. Nothing answers him.

"BLACK! _SIRIUS_!"

Dead silence. If he didn't know the trees were around him, he would've thought he was standing in a void. Remus clenches his teeth and clenches his hand around his wand.

"PADFOOT, YOU FUCKING COWARD, COME OUT AND FACE ME!"

The forest holds its breath and then a branch snaps. Remus spins towards the sound and there's a disturbance in the utter emptiness of nothing around him. A shadow separates, then takes two padding steps forward.

"Sirius," Remus growls, a rumbling so like his creature counterpart that the shadow pauses. It's head lifts towards the sky. Remus smirks and stalks softly forward.

"It's in four days, fucker. Wrong time of the month to go after my cub."

Yellowing teeth flash in the dark and the shadow moves again, becoming more dog-shaped the closer it gets. Even through his anger, Remus is shocked at the state of his old schoolmate. Sirius is skin and bone. You can count his ribs and spine, large tufts of fur are missing, and his eyes are big and buggy, pupils pinpricks. He looks insane.

He is insane.

He stops two feet from Remus and crouches down. Remus finds himself doing the same. Rage crowds his head, and he glowers at the black dog, lips peeled back, fingers twitching on the handle of his wand.

He wants him dead. He wants him dead. He wants him _dead._

"You killed Lily and James."

Something floods the dog's eyes and his body seems to collapse in on itself, head lowering. A vicious growl vibrates in Remus's chest.

"I won't let you kill Harry."

The dog's head snaps up, Remus wand rises, and a loud screech invades the stillness. It's instinctive to investigate the noise, and Remus turns to look. There's a scrambling sound and when he turns back, wand still high, Sirius is gone.

He's _gone._

"Remus!" Hermione calls. Her footsteps approach, and Remus's wand falls from his shaking hand, adrenalin making him dizzy.

"I-I'm here."

"Remus! Are you all right? What happened? Did you find him?"

"Yes," the werewolf whispers, tremors travelling up his arms and shaking his body. "Yes, I did."

Then he gathers a startled Hermione up his arms and buries his face in her neck, sucking in lungful after lungful of anchoring marigold.


End file.
